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PeopleSoft, Inc. (NASDAQ: PSFT (http://quotes.nasdaq.com/asp/SummaryQuote.asp?symbol=PSFT&selected=PSFT)) was a software company that provided enterprise resource planning, human resource management and customer relationship management software solutions to large corporations. The company was founded in 1987 by Dave Duffield and Ken Morris. Its roots lie from the idea Duffield had about a "Client-Server" (then a new concept) version of Integral's popular mainframe HRMS package. Once Integral declined development and released Duffield to pursue this endeavor on his own, PeopleSoft was born. In January 2005 PeopleSoft was acquired by the Oracle Corporation and ceased to be an independent company. Its products continue to be used by thousands of companies today.
The software is modularized into specific components, such as payroll, human resources, inventory, various accounting packages, student enrollment, etc. It is well known for its ability to be easily "customized," or tailor-made, to fit the specific business needs of each client, while still being generic enough to meet corporate and governmental tracking requirements. Its detractors decry the frequent bugs found in the system, which require patches and fixes. PeopleSoft - like most large software companies - has spawned an industry-within-an-industry of PeopleSoft consulting, the implementation and maintenance of the product.
Product design
The whole software suite of PeopleSoft has moved from the traditional client-server based design to web-centric design, called PeopleSoft Internet Architecture(PIA). The end result is that all of a company's business functions can be accessed and run on a web client. A small number of security and system setup functions, though, still need to be performed on a fat client machine.
PeopleSoft was successfully able to weather architectural changes from client-server to the internet and any future shift (like services-oriented architectures) due to its innovative meta-data based design that continues to remain the same.
J.D. Edwards
In 2003, PeopleSoft performed a friendly merger with smaller rival J.D. Edwards software. The rival with a similar product line provided strange synergies for the newly-combined company. J.D. Edwards products catered to small to mid-sized companies running a variety of hardware platforms, including IBM AS/400, HP, UNIX, and Windows, as well as various database systems, like Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and IBM DB2. In addition, PeopleSoft was now committed to supporting an old-style "green screen" application -- the same application which drove Duffield to branch out and create PeopleSoft in the first place (if the J.D. Edwards customer is running them on an AS400 world software.)
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) to take over PeopleSoft, in what many describe as 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's board of directors. Later that month, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit to block Oracle, on the grounds that the acquisition attempt would break anti-trust laws; however, in September 2004, this 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 European Commission also cleared the way for Oracle's hostile takeover, in what many industry pundits believe was the last hurdle Oracle needed to overcome. Oracle has reduced the offer to $7.7 billion, or $21 per share, in May 2004. On November 1 2004, Oracle raised the bid again to $9.4 billion, or $24 per share, marking a 14% increase. On December 13 2004 Oracle announced that it has signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire PeopleSoft, Inc., for $26.50 per share (approximately $10.3 billion). Recently (as of Jan 2005), Oracle has started firing massive amounts of workers from PeopleSoft. These cuts will affect about 9% of the 55,000 staff of the combined companies; they stated that they would maintain at least 90% of PeopleSoft's product development and product support staff. (more on this from | BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4176571.stm))
PeopleSoft in use
PeopleSoft software has been implemented with great success by the vast majority of their customers. However, like any large corporatation, there are situations which have resulted in litigation. As with any ERP software, the implementation process, which includes but is not limited to analysis, planning, developing, performance/load testing and various other types of Software testing, is absolutely critical towards the success of the project.
In 1997, Cleveland State University licensed PeopleSoft's software for tracking student records. After seven years of difficulties, they sued PeopleSoft for $510 million, claiming breach of contract, fraud, negligent misrepresentation and four other counts. The university claimed that software developed by PeopleSoft was missing specified features, and as a result caused disruption to their admissions process.
In December 1999, seven of the eight "Big 10" Midwestern universities which licensed PeopleSoft's software wrote a joint, open letter to the PeopleSoft CEO complaining about quality and performance issues.
In the winter of 2003, UMass Amherst rolled out PeopleSoft's student records system. Columbia University began using it to track faculty and staff human resources records and allow self-service to update personal information and paystubs.
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