PeopleSoft pushes improved software ownership experience

CONFERENCES

Ease of integration key for users such as the City of Oshawa's manager of applications support

LAS VEGAS - Look out IT managers: PeopleSoft says it wants to simplify the user experience around software installations, integration and upgrades.

PeopleSoft Inc. CEO Craig Conway said at a recent PeopleSoft conference his vision is to make enterprise software as user-friendly as PC applications have become in the last decade. The company has dedicated 500 developers to "dramatically improve the ownership experience."

Conway introduced the concept of the total ownership experience during his keynote address to about 2,500 senior executives attending PeopleSoft's Leadership Summit.

The 500 developers will work on tasks that address all aspects of application lifecycle and currently require significant IT resources. Pointing to how personal computers no longer require specialized technical knowledge to do things like software installations, Conway said improving the ease of use of enterprise software will mean greater investment for the industry in the long run.

"When printers were produced with USB port capability, those companies sold more printers. Ease of use acts as a catalyst to deploy new technology," he said. "This was a lough year, and as we tried to get customers to spend, the answer was 'my budget is all tied up.' Our hope is the cost of integration goes away, freeing up money to do other things."

Conway claims multi-vendor plug-and-play integration with competitors will become something ready to go, out of the box.

"This is the end of middleware. The burden of enlerprise application integration should be on the enterprise software companies, not you," he said.

Developers at the company will be focused on creating tools that will reduce the amount of time it takes to complete software installations, says Ram Gupta, executive vice-president of products and technology for PeopleSoft.

"Installations today take too long," Gupta said. "The goal is to dramatically reduce the time to install. Ever wonder why IT people and not business users are doing installs? Because to date it has been too complicated. Our goal is to have a configuration process driven by the business user not the IT user."

That's something users such as David Mawby, manager of applications support at the City of Oshawa, have been advocating.

"I don't think it will necessarily mean putting it totally in the hands of business users, but I agree the business leaders should be able to be there to make the business decisions. I think a lot of the things they talked about will happen in stages and certainly, ease of integration, as we move forward, is key."

Gupta says the total ownership experience will change the way IT shops operate and how users like Mawby put applications into play.

"Our fundamental goal is to reduce those people-intensive processes. We will connect directly to Oracle and SAP so IT people won't have to spend months doing it," he said.

The company will pre-build configuration templates it says will lake weeks, not months, to become operational. It will also embed diagnostic probes into applications, capturing "vital signs" and identifying potential solutions.

While it is estimated one third of IT operating budgets go toward integration, Conway said he believes it is closer to 50 per cent. That, says Gupta, is because the large ERP vendors "still believe the cold war is on. Out of the box we will ship a number of business processes directly integrated with Oracle and SAP

"Imagine a world where PeopleSoft, SAP and Oracle automatically integrate. I'm gelling misty-eyed thinking about it."

PeopleSoft will also support Linux on all of its nearly 200 applications. Teaming up with IBM, the company will offer its applications for Linux environments running on IBM eServer xSeries, DB2 Universal Database and WebSphere Application server.

Conway said there are times when technology can answer the call of businesses looking to cut costs.

"The biggest dependency now is on the Microsoft platform. Microsoft is determined to continue that dependency with .Net - which is a strategy, not a product. It is meant to convince you to use Microsoft developer tools, middleware and databases," Conway said.

"The answer to the death grip Microsoft has on the industry is an alternative and Linux will break the dependency on Microsoft. That's not because we're anti-Microsoft; we're prochoice."

However, Mawby say Linux is not a consideration. "The government in general likes open standards and you can save money, but for us it's the support aspect - it would be huge to try to bring in multiple environments and integrate those environments. We're still Windows NT/2000."

BY JENNIFER BROWN

SPECIAL TO TIG

Copyright Plesman Publications Ltd. Jun 2003
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved