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Story URL: http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39126441,00.htm

5 years ago: PeopleSoft CEO says ERP has weathered the storm
An Agenda Setter interview with a familiar CEO…

By silicon.com

Published: Thursday 09 December 2004

09.12.99 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 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."

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."

09.12.04 Parts of the IT industry that didn't benefit from pre-millennium tension? They did exist.

Looking back, clearly there were and remain problems with ERP - the enterprise resource planning applications that handle processes such as manufacturing, finances, payroll and HR within organisations, the latter a starting point, once upon a time, for PeopleSoft.

But the parts of this story that resonate most are Conway as 'recently appointed CEO' and a man who clearly wanted his entity to grow like his one-time employer, Oracle.

PeopleSoft did have some success with its move to 'internet everything' but Conway left this year as the acquisition attempt by Oracle kept on turning up the heat in the boardroom. It turned out to be almost exactly a five-year term.

Now it looks like PeopleSoft may well be able to ape Oracle's revenue column - by becoming part of the number two software vendor. We realise that's not what Conway had in mind in the interview referred to above.