PeopleSoft Extends Industry Leadership
in Delivering Total Ownership Experience
New Technology to Accelerate Upgrades, Ease Business Process Integration
Today at its Connect 2004 user conference, PeopleSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq: PSFT) announced significant new technologies,
extending the company’s leadership in delivering the leading total ownership experience for enterprise applications. One
of the new technologies introduced, PeopleSoft® Accelerated Upgrade, will dramatically change the way customers upgrade
their enterprise applications.
The solution will reduce upgrade time by 25 to 40 percent and decrease downtime to migrate to new releases by 66
percent. A second technology introduced today is PeopleSoft Interactive Services Repository, a comprehensive directory
of business process integration points that will further reduce the challenges associated with application integration
in a heterogeneous software environment. PeopleSoft’s Total Ownership Experience initiative, launched in May 2003,
transforms the way customers implement, use, and maintain software, significantly driving down the time and costs
associated with owning enterprise applications.
“IT organisations are under intense pressure to meet increasing user expectations with ever-decreasing resources,” said
Ram Gupta, executive vice president, PeopleSoft Products and Technology. “The new products announced today will
completely revolutionise the upgrade process for customers and reduce software integration complexity, driving down the
cost and time to implement enterprise software. These new technologies widen our lead in providing the best Total
Ownership Experience in the industry.”
Accelerated Upgrade to Reduce Upgrade Time by 25 to 40 Percent
PeopleSoft Accelerated Upgrade will significantly change the enterprise application upgrade process. Until now,
enterprise application upgrades required customers to copy their old production system onto a backup server and then
migrate the new software release functionality. With PeopleSoft’s new Accelerated Upgrade, customers will only need to
copy their application customisations and data to the new release.
Four tools will automate the new upgrade process, including a new visual comparison tool to identify customisations, a
customisation migration tool, a new data transformation and migration tool, and PeopleSoft’s Change Assistant update
tool that automatically transfers maintenance updates to the new release. As a result, the time to upgrade to a new
software release will be reduced by 25 to 40 percent. Additionally, downtime from taking systems offline to move to the
new production environment will be reduced by 66 percent and will require less than a day. The new automated data
transformation tool will enable customers to easily move to new operating systems and database platforms as part of the
upgrade process, providing them greater flexibility to move between system environments.
“Historically, enterprise application upgrades have often cost 30 percent or more of the original implementation,” said
Barry Wilderman, senior vice president, META Group, Inc. “By introducing specialised programs to manage the upgrade
process, vendors like PeopleSoft are addressing the total cost of upgrades issue head on.”
Interactive Service Repository Eases Business Process Integration One of the top IT challenges today is maintaining and
updating integration points to reflect business process requirements and changes. PeopleSoft’s new Interactive Service
Repository hosts content for more than 1,500 application integration points for PeopleSoft and third-party partner
applications. The new repository enables customers to view business process integration points across multiple
applications. This eliminates the time and resources previously needed to translate and update individual application
integration points to address changing business process requirements.
Building on a Strong Track Record PeopleSoft has shipped seven new product releases with significant Total Ownership
Experience functionality since the initiative was launched in May 2003. These technologies have reduced implementation
time by 20 percent, increased user productivity on key tasks by 30 percent, driven down steps to apply updates and
maintenance by 80 percent, and reduced time to resolve support incidents by 44 percent. Crimson Consulting Group Study
on the Application Ownership Experience In a separate news release today, Crimson Consulting Group, an independent
consulting firm, announced the findings of a research study that demonstrate PeopleSoft’s continued leadership in
offering a superior application ownership experience. PeopleSoft received higher marks than SAP and Oracle in the areas
of implementation, usability, and maintenance. Crimson noted the following:
Implementation: PeopleSoft implementation features rated higher than Microsoft, SAP, and Siebel in enabling
implementation teams to install, implement, and deploy enterprise applications on time and under budget. Usability:
Across the features evaluated, PeopleSoft was ranked ahead of Oracle and SAP. Maintenance, Support, and Upgrades:
PeopleSoft rated consistently high across the maintenance feature set primarily due to its ability to proactively and
rapidly isolate and resolve application issues through embedded diagnostics scripts and thorough test scenarios.
Crimson Consulting’s research study can be found at www.crimson-consulting.com/ownershipexperiencestudy/index.html
PeopleSoft Interactive Service Repository will be available next quarter and PeopleSoft Accelerated Upgrade will be
available in the first quarter of 2005. More information on how PeopleSoft technology enhancements have improved the
Total Ownership Experience for customers is available at http://www.peoplesoft.com/goto/toefacts About PeopleSoft
PeopleSoft (Nasdaq: PSFT) is the world’s second largest provider of enterprise application software with 12,400
customers in more than 25 industries and 150 countries. For more information, visit us at www.peoplesoft.com. ###
Forward-Looking Statements
Statements made in this press release that state the company’s or management’s intentions, beliefs, expectations, or
predictions for the future are forward-looking statements.
Readers are cautioned that these statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual future events or
results. Factors that may bear on the accuracy of these predictions include economic conditions in the U.S. and abroad,
the ability to complete and deliver products and services within currently estimated time frames and budgets, market
response to product announcements, and other risks referenced from time to time in the company’s filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission.
Please refer to the company’'s periodic reports to shareholders (Forms 10-K and 10-Q) for more information on the risk
factors that could cause actual results to differ. PeopleSoft is a registered trademark of PeopleSoft, Inc. All other
company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Copyright © 2004 PeopleSoft, Inc. All rights
reserved.
ENDS