PeopleSoft Secure With Its Strategy

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Internet business software maker PeopleSoft looked to inject some new life into its sales with the release of new homeland security products and an international mid-market sales program.

The Pleasanton, Calif.-based firm Monday took the wraps off its PeopleSoft PASS (Patriot Act SEVIS Solution). The software lets colleges and universities comply with the U.S. Justice Department’s new Internet-based Student and Exchange Visitor Information System. Starting this January, schools are required to collect information on foreign students and report it to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

“Approximately 10 percent of our enrolled students are foreign nationals,” said Dr. Paul W. Barrows, vice chancellor of Student Affairs at University of Wisconsin, Madison. “Reporting to the INS under the terms of SEVIS would be an extremely time-consuming and expensive task if we were only able to use the INS’s web interface. With PeopleSoft PASS, we will be able to link all student status information and related databases.”

In addition, PeopleSoft’s new Guardian solution, based on its human resource platform, is designed to help governments hire, track and provide online education.

On the home front, PeopleSoft unveiled its Project Portfolio Management and ESA Warehouse, two new solutions in its Enterprise Service Automation (ESA) suite. With Project Portfolio Management, organizations can evaluate, monitor and compare information on new and existing projects. ESA Warehouse consolidates data from multiple sources for accurate reporting, analysis and insight into operating costs.

The company also announced the expansion of its mid-market offering, PeopleSoft Accelerated Solutions. The solutions will be available in France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

The fixed-price solutions include PeopleSoft’s pure Internet applications, technical and end-user training and implementation services. The Accelerated Solutions have been localized for the language, currency and regulatory requirements of each country.

Meantime, PeopleSoft’s new Supplier Rating System will let customers create a consistent, repeatable methodology for business managers and executives to manage and measure supplier performance. With the new software, PeopleSoft said organizations will be able to capture data from across the enterprise and choose from more than eighty key performance indicators to set parameters, weight criteria and create supplier scorecards to measure performance in areas such as product quality, invoice accuracy, delivery reliability and price.

PeopleSoft also announced an expanded relationship with IBM Corp. to offer customers pre-configured eServer infrastructure solutions that include the highly scalable DB2 database software, and a eServer xSeries or pSeries.

IBM Global Services and its network of business partners will deliver fixed-scope, fixed-price implementation services for PeopleSoft applications. The first solution to be delivered will be PeopleSoft Accelerated CRM for the financial services, discrete manufacturing and wholesale

“Creating cost-effective, low risk, integrated solutions is the key to success for mid-market organizations around the world,” said Barry Wilderman, senior vice president and service director, Application Delivery Strategies, Meta Group, Inc. “Alliances like PeopleSoft’s mid-market initiative with IBM helps reduce risk since IBM can simultaneously play the roles of hardware, database and systems integration vendors.”

The new tools and contracts are designed to help gain market share against PeopleSoft rivals Oracle and Siebel Systems .