Recently "inaugurated" as the No. 2 leading business applications provider after digesting the former J.D. Edwards & Company, PeopleSoft, Inc. (NASDAQ: PSFT), has been making decisive moves to deliver a number of new, and refurbished solutions, in a great part by leveraging its recently acquired product portfolio. Although the vendor has acted swiftly on assimilating its former competitor (see PeopleSoft Gathers Manufacturing and SCM Wherewithal), these recent initiatives might show us that the vendor has moved even farther from the digestion stage and into a full-blown execution and productivity phase.
Recent announcements that reflect this are
* PeopleSoft World Express, one of the industry's most comprehensive solutions for smaller businesses with annual revenues between $20 million and $100 million (USD), on May 3, at COMMON 2004, the IBM iSeries user conference.
* A new release of PeopleSoft World that included more than 280 new features and enhancements that span the product family's human capital management (HCM), supply chain management (SCM), and financial management (FM) applications, and a new web-based user interface (UI),on March 18 at CeBIT 2004.
* Further extensions of the longstanding partnership with IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced during PeopleSoft 2004 Leadership Summit which expands their global alliance by enabling IBM's expanding SMB reseller channel (see IBM Express-es Its Candid Desire for SMEs) to offer PeopleSoft applications. PeopleSoft on May 18.
For details, see Part One.
The importance of the above announcements is multifaceted. First, against the background of SAP having to recently tackle the lower-end of the mid-market by acquiring and then further sprucing up a more suitable and genuine product for the segment, PeopleSoft stands a good chance in the market segment by leveraging a revamped release of a tried-and-true vantage product. (See SAP Tries Another, Bifurcated Tack at a Small Guy and SoftBrands to Institute Fourth Shift for SAP Business One Manufacturing Work-Plan for information on SAP.) To refresh our memory, the original J.D. Edwards WorldSoftware product was launched in 1984, and it has always run only on the IBM eServer iSeries platform (formerly AS/400). It has also since become one of the most stable and widely used ERP applications on the platform, with 3,400 almost religiously loyal customers worldwide, and it was available in 21 supported languages.
However, while the product was both a blessing and a curse for its original owner, the new owner, PeopleSoft seems to have learned from these experiences to its advantage. Namely, throughout the 1990s, the former J.D. Edwards has kept its focus on what was then the breadwinner, the RPG code-based World product. It maintained strong services until its next-generation OneWorld product (currently called PeopleSoft EntepriseOne) was released in the late 1990s. The vendor had thus established itself at that stage through a combination of its reliable product and a strong services organization, which was able to help a tide of enterprises overcome the Y2K compliance issues.
In addition, a former J.D. Edwards' US-focused, mid-market program called Genesis, which aimed at ensuring stability and low support must-haves for the market segment, through a competitively-priced older (and thus market-proven) release of J.D. Edwards' World, had been sold to enterprises with less than $100 million (USD) in annual revenue by distributors that provided local support. However, the program had not fully fulfilled its indisputable promise because of J.D. Edwards' lack of willingness to take a more aggressive stance in building up its distribution channel. PeopleSoft will have to watch carefully in order not to repeat the mistake.
Although J.D. Edwards had avoided the financial turmoil that its traditional AS/400-based competitors experienced in the mid-1990s, when some, like former SSA (now SSA Global) and JBA International (now part of Geac Computers) were fatally wounded, it has still had an Odyssey-like transition from solely IBM iSeries and DB2 platforms to UNIX, Oracle, and Microsoft Windows NT/2000 while keeping most customers committed and arguably content.
Namely, although erstwhile J.D. Edwards had successfully targeted conservative AS/400-oriented enterprises with its mature World product and a well thought-out migration to the next-generation, cross-platform, ERP application OneWorld (i.e., owing to a well-conceived data model consistency, virtual functional parity, and the ability to have the older and next-generation applications coexist), it has nonetheless not been an easy and completely successful feat for many reasons. For one, it has taken several years for former OneWorld to entirely reach the functional parity with its older and more mature sibling, WorldSoftware. Also, because of J.D. Edwards' heritage and market presence, iSeries had initially, and for a long time, been the dominant platform even within the OneWorld constituency. While the Microsoft Windows NT/2000 platform, in particular, has long been capturing an increasing share of the overall OneWorld deals and prospects, still, J.D. Edwards' belated entry to the non-iSeries ERP market hampered its success, since it had not initially been a known force for UNIX, Oracle, and Windows customers.
Then again, most new functional enhancements have since been added to the more technologically promising (in terms of support for multiple platforms and scalability) OneWorld product, which had meanwhile gained a functional edge over World in most areas, especially outside the core ERP scope. However, it still would fall behind in others, including certain financial and accounting modules. Also, J.D. Edwards' growing implementation partner program at the time had targeted the more attractive non-iSeries platforms, whereby the WorldSoftware's user enterprises and partners have thus long been wary of J.D. Edwards' (and, eventually, PeopleSoft's) intentions to indefinitely support the ageing product, given the company's development effort immediately prior to the acquisition had mostly been on extending the OneWorld's footprint (meanwhile once again renamed into J.D. Edwards 5, shortly prior to being acquired by PeopleSoft) and ensuring the upgrade path from World to OneWorld.
In contrast, because of OneWorld's immaturity, there were initially only a few operational installations, while experienced service and support personnel were also limited, as both the internal and external professional services organizations made the slow transition to OneWorld. Thus, many enterprises facing tight Y2K-related deadlines at the time (the late 1990s) had to opt for a coexistence strategy of OneWorld and World, which could work off the same data at the same time. Many enterprises would logically then deploy the most mission-critical, shortest timeframe functions on World and implement OneWorld in non-mission-critical areas. Eventually, most of these problems were solved by the still independent J.D. Edwards. However, the bottom line has since resulted in an attractive J.D. Edwards 5 (now PeopleSoft EntepriseOne) product suite, while the World product has been all but relegated to the status of a "stabilized" product, with a quite disenchanted channel and disconcerted user base (for more details, see J.D. Edwards Finds Its Inner-Self Within Its 5th Incarnation).
Recent announcements that reflect this are
* PeopleSoft World Express, one of the industry's most comprehensive solutions for smaller businesses with annual revenues between $20 million and $100 million (USD), on May 3, at COMMON 2004, the IBM iSeries user conference.
* A new release of PeopleSoft World that included more than 280 new features and enhancements that span the product family's human capital management (HCM), supply chain management (SCM), and financial management (FM) applications, and a new web-based user interface (UI),on March 18 at CeBIT 2004.
* Further extensions of the longstanding partnership with IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced during PeopleSoft 2004 Leadership Summit which expands their global alliance by enabling IBM's expanding SMB reseller channel (see IBM Express-es Its Candid Desire for SMEs) to offer PeopleSoft applications. PeopleSoft on May 18.
For details, see Part One.
The importance of the above announcements is multifaceted. First, against the background of SAP having to recently tackle the lower-end of the mid-market by acquiring and then further sprucing up a more suitable and genuine product for the segment, PeopleSoft stands a good chance in the market segment by leveraging a revamped release of a tried-and-true vantage product. (See SAP Tries Another, Bifurcated Tack at a Small Guy and SoftBrands to Institute Fourth Shift for SAP Business One Manufacturing Work-Plan for information on SAP.) To refresh our memory, the original J.D. Edwards WorldSoftware product was launched in 1984, and it has always run only on the IBM eServer iSeries platform (formerly AS/400). It has also since become one of the most stable and widely used ERP applications on the platform, with 3,400 almost religiously loyal customers worldwide, and it was available in 21 supported languages.
However, while the product was both a blessing and a curse for its original owner, the new owner, PeopleSoft seems to have learned from these experiences to its advantage. Namely, throughout the 1990s, the former J.D. Edwards has kept its focus on what was then the breadwinner, the RPG code-based World product. It maintained strong services until its next-generation OneWorld product (currently called PeopleSoft EntepriseOne) was released in the late 1990s. The vendor had thus established itself at that stage through a combination of its reliable product and a strong services organization, which was able to help a tide of enterprises overcome the Y2K compliance issues.
In addition, a former J.D. Edwards' US-focused, mid-market program called Genesis, which aimed at ensuring stability and low support must-haves for the market segment, through a competitively-priced older (and thus market-proven) release of J.D. Edwards' World, had been sold to enterprises with less than $100 million (USD) in annual revenue by distributors that provided local support. However, the program had not fully fulfilled its indisputable promise because of J.D. Edwards' lack of willingness to take a more aggressive stance in building up its distribution channel. PeopleSoft will have to watch carefully in order not to repeat the mistake.
Although J.D. Edwards had avoided the financial turmoil that its traditional AS/400-based competitors experienced in the mid-1990s, when some, like former SSA (now SSA Global) and JBA International (now part of Geac Computers) were fatally wounded, it has still had an Odyssey-like transition from solely IBM iSeries and DB2 platforms to UNIX, Oracle, and Microsoft Windows NT/2000 while keeping most customers committed and arguably content.
Namely, although erstwhile J.D. Edwards had successfully targeted conservative AS/400-oriented enterprises with its mature World product and a well thought-out migration to the next-generation, cross-platform, ERP application OneWorld (i.e., owing to a well-conceived data model consistency, virtual functional parity, and the ability to have the older and next-generation applications coexist), it has nonetheless not been an easy and completely successful feat for many reasons. For one, it has taken several years for former OneWorld to entirely reach the functional parity with its older and more mature sibling, WorldSoftware. Also, because of J.D. Edwards' heritage and market presence, iSeries had initially, and for a long time, been the dominant platform even within the OneWorld constituency. While the Microsoft Windows NT/2000 platform, in particular, has long been capturing an increasing share of the overall OneWorld deals and prospects, still, J.D. Edwards' belated entry to the non-iSeries ERP market hampered its success, since it had not initially been a known force for UNIX, Oracle, and Windows customers.
Then again, most new functional enhancements have since been added to the more technologically promising (in terms of support for multiple platforms and scalability) OneWorld product, which had meanwhile gained a functional edge over World in most areas, especially outside the core ERP scope. However, it still would fall behind in others, including certain financial and accounting modules. Also, J.D. Edwards' growing implementation partner program at the time had targeted the more attractive non-iSeries platforms, whereby the WorldSoftware's user enterprises and partners have thus long been wary of J.D. Edwards' (and, eventually, PeopleSoft's) intentions to indefinitely support the ageing product, given the company's development effort immediately prior to the acquisition had mostly been on extending the OneWorld's footprint (meanwhile once again renamed into J.D. Edwards 5, shortly prior to being acquired by PeopleSoft) and ensuring the upgrade path from World to OneWorld.
In contrast, because of OneWorld's immaturity, there were initially only a few operational installations, while experienced service and support personnel were also limited, as both the internal and external professional services organizations made the slow transition to OneWorld. Thus, many enterprises facing tight Y2K-related deadlines at the time (the late 1990s) had to opt for a coexistence strategy of OneWorld and World, which could work off the same data at the same time. Many enterprises would logically then deploy the most mission-critical, shortest timeframe functions on World and implement OneWorld in non-mission-critical areas. Eventually, most of these problems were solved by the still independent J.D. Edwards. However, the bottom line has since resulted in an attractive J.D. Edwards 5 (now PeopleSoft EntepriseOne) product suite, while the World product has been all but relegated to the status of a "stabilized" product, with a quite disenchanted channel and disconcerted user base (for more details, see J.D. Edwards Finds Its Inner-Self Within Its 5th Incarnation).
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