Undaunted PeopleSoft rolls out business apps

Although the threat of Oracle’s hostile takeover continues to cast a shadow over it, PeopleSoft is pressing on with plans to integrate into its product mix the enterprise applications it picked up last year in its acquisition of J.D. Edwards.

This week the company will announce more than 250 enhancements to EnterpriseOne Version 8.11, J.D. Edwards’ enterprise business applications platform, which includes Demand Flow Manufacturing, RFID Processor, and Sales and Operations Planning modules. Demand Flow Manufacturing includes Line Design, Resource Management, and Daily Planning and Sequencing.

Officials also announced that EnterpriseOne CRM solutions will be embedded into back-office operations using the same user interface — and on the same database — as the rest of the supply chain solutions.

The announcements reflect the continuation of PeopleSoft’s promise to support J.D. Edwards’ products.

Joel Reed, vice president of product marketing for EnterpriseOne at PeopleSoft, said a user working in the SFA module will be connected to the demand management side. “Simultaneous with a revenue forecast passed on to the financial side of the house, a product detail forecast could go to the planning person,” Reed said.

One customer endorsed the PeopleSoft’s initiative. “It would be nice to have one consistent solution that everyone can leverage,” said John Salaski, manager of application development at Hoffman Enclosures.

Josh Greenbaum, principal at Enterprise Applications Consulting, said manufacturers on the EnterpriseOne platform are a loyal core for PeopleSoft. “Many manufacturers are on the IBM iSeries hardware platform, and Oracle doesn’t support that,” he said.