Campus Computing NewsPeopleSoft, now Oracle …what does that mean for the University of North Texas?By Misty Wells, UNT Central Web SupportAs the person primarily responsible for the creation of the MyUNT portal, Misty Wells has a keen interest in the ramifications of the Oracle/PeopleSoft merger. The combined Oracle/PeopleSoft company was launched Tuesday, January 18 via a Webcast. It is doubtful that Oracle will have much to say about the higher-education components they have inherited from PeopleSoft, as they -- like most any big organization -- are likely to be concerned about their commercial and government customers first. A number of people from the Computing and Information Technology Center will be attending the Higher Education User Group (HEUG) conference in March and it is hoped that by then Oracle will be will be able to give us a better idea of what their plans are. Our representatives hope they will be able to get a feeling at HEUG for Oracle's commitment to (or at least awareness of) higher education as a significant industry. Look for more on this topic in subsequent issues of Benchmarks Online. -- Ed. It has been a long time coming -- Oracle taking over PeopleSoft -- but it has finally happened. Oracle's last extended offer for PeopleSoft closed Tuesday, January 4. Now the real work begins, integrating PeopleSoft products with Oracle products. This is anticipated to be a great challenge, at the technical and organizational levels as well as for customers and employees. Most people agree that this was a much-needed acquisition for Oracle. A benefit to PeopleSoft’s customers is that Oracle pledged to support all current customers for 10-years. As Ephraim Schwartz recently noted in InfoWorld, “what Oracle has not promised is to continue R&D for PeopleSoft products beyond the next release,” a point about which this University should be concerned. It is not definite what will happen beyond this point, but it is apparent that there is grave concern about the choices that PeopleSoft customers have. That is, if PeopleSoft customers do not shift to Oracle then we (including the University of North Texas) may be stuck with our current version until further notice. However, there are other Enterprise solution companies, such as SAP, that will surely use this take-over to their advantage, so all is not gloom and doom. Additionally, customers can re-affirm with Oracle that they will expect Oracle to keep promises that were made during the negotiation process with PeopleSoft. They rightfully should expect Oracle to fulfill their existing agreements with PeopleSoft. PeopleSoft customers should begin to weigh their options and act accordingly. In spite of all the uncertainty the University of North Texas really doesn’t have anything to fret about. There will still be a PeopleSoft support team available as well as other programs or products for the next couple of years that will work with the various versions of our PeopleSoft software. Furthermore, just as we adapted to PeopleSoft being the new and improved system on campus we can adapt to Oracle in the future if that’s our direction several years from now.
|