PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards Combination Brings Value

Integration of Two Product Lines Provides New Solutions for PeopleSoft Clientele

PeopleSoft, which provides tools for connecting customers, suppliers, partners, and employees to business processes on-line, recently announced that it has integrated the products and assets of recent acquisition J.D. Edwards Company with ground-breaking speed. PeopleSoft's applications include customer relationship management, supply chain management, human capital management, financial management, and application integration. The former J.D. Edwards Company (now a division of PeopleSoft), designs, develops, and markets collaborative enterprise software with consulting, education and support services. J.D. Edwards was acquired by PeopleSoft in July of 2003. Today more than 12,000 customers in more than 25 industries and 150 countries use PeopleSoft products.

The integration of PeopleSoft Enterprise (formerly known as PeopleSoft 8) and EnterpriseOne (formerly known as J.D. Edwards 5) has exceeded company expectations by happening in a matter of six months. "There are really two kinds of strategies in acquisitions," says Steve Swasey, director of public relations for PeopleSoft. "One is to expand the industry and the other is to consolidate the industry. We're all about expansion. We believe that the acquisition of J.D. Edwards has proved beneficial to both our shareholders and our customers. The acquisition of J.D. Edwards added capabilities to customers of both companies along with customers in industries that PeopleSoft did not previously serve. We now have software available on more platforms and more databases than any other company." It also catapulted PeopleSoft to the number two enterprise software company in the industry.

The acquisition of J.D. Edwards has worked well for PeopleSoft because, rather than having products that were competing with each other, the two companies had products that complemented each other. "We took J.D. Edwards' products and blended them into ours and now we're joint marketing the combined solutions," Swasey says. For example, J.D. Edwards had a lot of "asset intensive" products in fields such as real estate, where they had software that supported tracking transactions in that industry. PeopleSoft, on the other hand, had products that track human resources, finances, and customer relationships. Especially in the case of large companies, it made sense to "cross sell" software to track real estate assets and things like human resources, while receiving support for both applications from the same company. "You can see how the customers benefited by the individual software programs each company sold," Swasey says. There was very little overlap in our product lines, but a lot of the products offered by the companies were used or could be used in the same enterprises."

Including the employees who came along during the acquisition of J.D. Edwards, PeopleSoft now has 12,000 employees worldwide. PeopleSoft also recently opened a new office building in Hacienda as part of its world corporate headquarters and has about 3,500 employees in Pleasanton.

Photo: PeopleSoft CEO Craig Conway has led his company's efforts to successfully complete the JD Edwards merger.

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