Old Times and New Times at PeopleSoft
May was the month for HR software user-group conferences, but the PeopleSoft HCM Global Product User Group both brought back memories of the past and offered an important glimpse into the future of the most widely used HR software in the world.
By Bill Kutik
May was the month for software-user conferences, those annual informational, marketing, cross-selling, feel-good events that vendors stage (mostly) for their customers and (occasionally) prospects.
After attending three of them in Orlando to moderate expert and executive panels, the PeopleSoft HCM Global Product User Group (GPUG) Conference stood out for offering both memories of the past and an important glimpse into the future of the most widely used HR software in the world.
GPUG is an independent organization, but Oracle shipped a boatload of HCM product strategy, development, support and training executives to talk to attendees. And for good reason: The 100 or so HRMS directors and managers there work for some of the world's largest companies -- many based outside the United States -- since membership has always required being live on the software in at least three countries.
One GPUG board member guessed the group collectively paid Oracle $20 million, and maybe much more, per year in maintenance fees. Very important customers.
In some ways, the meeting felt like the old days when PeopleSoft was still an independent company. The standard conference polo shirt had only PeopleSoft and GPUG's name stitched onto it, with no Oracle logo in sight. The audience heard a procession of mostly former PeopleSoft product strategy people (who decide what the software will actually do) not so subtly push them to upgrade to the current release, 8.9, while detailing their next version, 9.0, promised for the end of the year.
So what if they were all now really Oracle employees? The most important Oracle executive there was also a former PeopleSoft employee, Gretchen Alarcon, who recently succeeded two longtime Oracle veterans to the key post of vice president of all HCM product strategy. And Row Henson, who helped start GPUG for PeopleSoft years ago, was running around knowing -- and talking to -- everybody. It seemed like old times.
I was reminded what made PeopleSoft special when Amy Wilson, senior manager for ePerformance and eDevelopment, gave the best explanation I've heard yet of exactly how and why competencies really tie together not just those two applications but the rest of the Talent Management Suite, including recruiting and learning. HR technology thought leadership! That's what we always got from PeopleSoft because it had the unwavering commitment to HR and spent the time and money to develop it. Happily this time it came from an Oracle employee.
But there were dark clouds on the horizon, despite Oracle's announcement two weeks ago of "Applications Unlimited," its first promise of what had previously only been hinted: There will be continued new releases of PeopleSoft beyond Version 9.0, so users will not be forced onto the new Fusion product before they're ready. But earlier, Oracle had reorganized all of the PeopleSoft applications into a separate group, with its own general manager (not yet announced) and its own head of all product strategy, John Webb (former PeopleSoft, naturally), who is hiring an HCM strategy head as you read this.
So Alarcon, who, like her predecessors once led strategy for all the HCM products in Oracle's stable, will now only be focusing on Oracle's own product and the new Fusion line. Nothing worse than what PeopleSoft did to JD Edwards, after its own acquisition. But it is the organizational evidence that Oracle, after two flip-flops, intends to base the new Fusion line mostly on its own product, technology and data model -- and not on the blank slate, once promised, incorporating the very best features of all the products.
One U.K. attendee asked my panel of Oracle executives, "Well, how long will the new versions promised under Applications Unlimited go on? How can I plan?" No Oracle executive there could answer her question.
So I offered the total speculation that once the Fusion applications are rock-solid, the new PeopleSoft versions would stop. Oracle is promising full Fusion for 2008, but turning new software into stone takes awhile. Besides being a huge undertaking, Oracle HCM has historically missed its promised software delivery dates by two years. So I offered her the guesstimate of 2010!
But a whole new generation of leadership is now in charge, and history (and wistful time travel) may no longer be predictive of anything.
HR Technology Columnist Bill Kutik is also co-chairman of the 9th Annual HR Technology Conference & Exposition® in Chicago, Oct. 4 through 6. The full program is available at
www.HRTechnologyConference.com
. He can be reached at
bkutik@earthlink.net
.
June 5, 2006 Copyright 2006© LRP Publications
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