- PeopleSoft
Infobox Defunct Company
company_name = PeopleSoft
company_
slogan =
fate = merger
successor =Oracle Corporation
foundation = 1987
defunct = 2005
location =Walnut Creek, California ,USA
industry =
key_people = David Duffield, Ken Morris
products =
num_employees =
parent =
subsid =PeopleSoft, Inc. was a company that provided
Human resource management systems (HRMS),customer relationship management , Manufacturing, Financials, Enterprise Performance Management, and Student Administration software solutions to largecorporation s, governments, and organizations. PeopleSoft is also the name of the company's product suite.History
Founded in
1987 byDavid Duffield and Ken Morris, PeopleSoft was originally headquartered inWalnut Creek, California before moving toPleasanton, California . PeopleSoft began with an idea Duffield had about a "Client-Server " version ofIntegral Systems popular mainframe HRMS package. Once Integral declined development, Duffield was released to pursue this endeavor on his own, and PeopleSoft was born. In 2003, when the company acquiredJ.D. Edwards , it decided to differentiate its former product line with those of Edwards by renaming both products. In January2005 , PeopleSoft was acquired byOracle Corporation . PeopleSoft products continue to be used.Product design
PeopleSoft's product suite (also called PeopleSoft) was initially based on the
Client-Server architecture. The entire software suite moved to a web-centric design called Pure Internet Architecture (PIA) with the release of PeopleSoft Version 8. The new format allowed all of a company's business functions to be accessed and run on a web client. Originally, a small number of security and system setup functions still needed to be performed on afat client machine, however, this is no longer the case. The inherent nature of Internet-based applications allowed for a straightforward transition from a client-server model Fact|not the case, but it would be interesting to see how PeopleSoft solved this problem|date=August 2007. One important feature of PeopleSoft's PIA is that no code is required on the client - there is no need for additional downloads ofplugins , orJVM s such as theJinitiator required for Oracle Applications.The architecture is built around PeopleSoft’s proprietary
PeopleTools technology. (development platform similar to a4GL ) PeopleTools includes many different components a developer needs to create an application, including a scripting language calledPeopleCode , design tools to define various types ofmetadata , standard security structure, andbatch processing tools. The metadata describes data for user interfaces, tables, messages, security, navigation, portals, and so forth. The benefit of creating their own development platform allowed PeopleSoft applications to run on top of many different operating systems and database platforms. Currently, it is not tied to any specific database platform. PeopleSoft implementations exist or have existed on Oracle,Microsoft SQL Server ,Informix ,Sybase , IBM DB2 (including its z/OS,Unix andOS/400 variants),Oracle Rdb and HPAllBase/SQL .All of PeopleSoft’s modules (Human Resources, Supply Chain, Financials, CRM, etc.) are built with the PeopleTools technology. A benefit of the technology is that all the code which makes up a module can be customized to suit a company’s business needs.An auxiliary product,
PeopleCode , is an object-oriented proprietary language used to express business logic for PeopleSoft applications.J.D. Edwards
In
2003 , PeopleSoft performed a friendlymerger with smaller rivalJ.D. Edwards . The former rival's similar product line was differentiated by its target audience: mid-sized companies who could not afford the original PeopleSoft applications. J.D. Edwards product lines, formerly J.D. Edwards "World" on the AS/400 and OneWorld, were and continue to be differentiated by the Configurable Network Architecture or "CNC" Architecture. This architecture is designed to shield applications from both theoperating system and the database backend as long as some flavor of theSQL language is used. Thus,IBM 'sDB2/UDB ,Microsoft 'sSQL 2005 and Oracle databases's are supported. J.D. Edwards also continued to support thousands of customers on AS/400s running its original J.D. Edwards "World" or "WorldSoft" product.Likewise, servers can run on a host of operating systems including
Linux ,Microsoft Windows andIBM 'sAS/400 operating system. In addition, PeopleSoft remains committed to supporting J.D. Edwards's originalAS/400 -based World software, also called WorldSoft, the old-style "green screen" application — the same application which drove Duffield to branch out and create PeopleSoft in the first place.Oracle Corporation
Beginning in 2003, PeopleSoft battled with Oracle over control of the PeopleSoft company. In June 2003, Oracle made a $7 billion bid ($19.50/share) in a hostile corporate
takeover attempt. In February 2004, Oracle increased their bid to approximately $9.4 billion ($26/share), a 33% increase; this offer was also rejected forthwith by PeopleSoft'sboard of directors . Later that month, theU.S. Department of Justice filed suit to block Oracle, on the grounds that the acquisition would breakanti-trust laws; however, in September 2004, the suit was rejected by a U.S.Federal judge , who found that the Justice Department had not proven its anti-trust case; in October, the same decision was handed down by theEuropean Commission . Though Oracle had reduced its offer to $7.7 billion ($21/share) in May, it again raised its bid in November to $9.4 billion ($24/share), marking a 14% increase.In December 2004, Oracle announced that it had signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire PeopleSoft for approximately $10.3 billion ($26.50/share). In January 2005, Oracle made drastic cuts in the PeopleSoft ranks. These cuts affected approximately 9% of the 55,000 staff of the combined companies, but Oracle maintained at least 90% of PeopleSoft's product development and support staff. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4176571.stm Jobs go at Oracle after takeover - BBC News] ]
Oracle moved to capitalize on the perceived strong brand loyalty within the JD Edwards user community by rebranding former JD Edwards products. Thus PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne became JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and PeopleSoft World became JD Edwards World.
Oracle has announced that a new product Fusion is to be released in the near future. Oracle says Fusion will take the best aspects of the PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and Oracle Applications and merge them into a new product suite.
Oracle continues to support the existing Oracle and PeopleSoft product lines for current users. By retaining current applications and supporting the move to Fusion when appropriate, Oracle may be attempting prevent customer defections to rival
Enterprise Resource Planning vendors.PeopleSoft in use
PeopleSoft projects have been successfully implemented by many users, though there have been instances of litigation. As with any ERP software, the
implementation process (including analysis, planning and development), performance (load) testing and various other types ofsoftware testing are critical to the success of the project. In1997 ,Cleveland State University licensed PeopleSoft's software for tracking student records. After seven years of difficulties, CSU sued PeopleSoft for $510 million, claimingbreach of contract ,fraud , negligent misrepresentation and four other counts. The case was settled for $4.25 million in2005 . [ [http://csuold.csuohio.edu/oncampus/2005/0307e.html] ]
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