PeopleSoft, Duffield, and Conway: "Back to the Future"
or "Extreme Makeover"?

[8-10-04 / p57/META Group] Am 6. Oktober publizierte die META Group in ihrem META Flash eine Einschätzung der drohenden Übernahme von Peoplesoft durch Oracle. Hier einige Auszüge: „Last week, on the heels of its successful Connect user conference, PeopleSoft announced its board of directors has “lost confidence” in President and CEO Craig Conway’s ability to run the company and has terminated him, replacing him with founder and chairman, Dave Duffield. The board has named current CFO Kevin Parker and Phil Wilmington as co-presidents, and Director Aneel Bhusri (a longtime Duffield ally) as vice chairman of the board, to act as its technical visionary. While the company will not articulate why the board has lost confidence in Conway, it (somewhat ironically) concurrently announced that its third-quarter license revenue is expected to exceed $150 million (well beyond Wall Street guidance).”

Dogs and Bagels: Dave Duffield Restores the PeopleSoft Culture?

”The announcement of Conway’s termination and Duffield’s reinstatement (which, according to PeopleSoft, is a permanent position) is somewhat incongruous in the wake of last week’s wildly successful, love-filled North American user conference, PeopleSoft Connect. Acknowledging Dave Duffield (from his front-row audience seat, not on the podium) and his legacy as the ongoing cultural imprint on PeopleSoft, Craig Conway reinforced how “humble, grateful, and proud” the company is of its enduring relationship with its customers. The customers responded in kind with an unwavering show of support and solidarity not typically found at user conferences. (…) Dave Duffield’s cultural imprint has clearly been modified by Craig Conway’s tenure as the company was forced to “grow up” (no more overly casual employee dress, no dogs in the office), but it was back with a vengeance less than 12 hours after the news hit the wire. Indeed, Duffield’s legendary love of dogs was once again visible with employees bringing their dogs to work, and Duffield bringing bagels for breakfast (a Duffield tradition), and a welcome “back to the future” cultural shift for PeopleSoft employees.”

Technical Vision Lost and Found

”In the same press release, PeopleSoft announced the appointment of longtime Duffield friend and ally Aneel Bhusri to vice chairman and technical visionary. Although curious coming as it does so soon after the positive reception to the long-awaited technology announcement at Connect, this appointment underscores the company’s desire to regain some of its technology leadership, which has eroded over the past 18 months as other enterprise application vendors (most notably SAP) have developed and have begun to execute on next-generation technology visions. Indeed, the role seems to be as much about bringing back Duffield’s “dream team” as about technology vision per se, given Bhusri’s support for Bergquist (they are old friends) and his vision of the Adaptable Business Architecture (ABA).”