Agenda Setter: PeopleSoft CEO says ERP has weathered the storm

The ERP market has been through a tough year, but there is a brighter spell ahead, according to Craig Conway, PeopleSoft's recently appointed CEO.

Speaking exclusively to Silicon.com in an Agenda Setter video interview, Conway said: "The ERP industry for transaction processing software had flattened out. And all the ERP providers were about equally affected."

The ERP specialist has seen its annual profits drop by 88 per cent, but Conway says that's part of an industry-wide problem. He blames the distraction of millennium bug preparations, which has seriously affected sales of transaction processing software. "In 1999 they didn't want to change their enterprise software - it became the year in which the tide moved out."

But the PeopleSoft chief is confident about the future: "You cannot run a large organisation without enterprise transaction software. The ERP industry is fundamentally required."

The company plans to fight back next year by moving to a Web-enabled architecture and making it easier for users to access applications through a browser. Conway says the company will also move more towards front-office applications.

"I'm here to determine a vision for the company on which it can build the next stage of its growth," Conway added. "For the company to grow, like Oracle did, from a $1bn to $8bn, it needs to extend its product line and extend its services line.

The full Agenda Setter interview with Craig Conway can be viewed in Silicon's ERP Channel (http://www.silicon.com/a34550 ).