Conway vows to fight off Oracle

The combined strength of PeopleSoft and JD Edwards will be enough to see off any bid from Oracle, according to PeopleSoft president and chief executive Craig Conway.

He referred to the events around the hostile bid as a "saga" which was not going as planned for Oracle.

"Oracle's actions are not consistent with wanting to own PeopleSoft - discontinuing its sales of our products and laying off its PeopleSoft staff," Conway told delegates at the PeopleSoft Connect conference in Barcelona.

"These tactics are consistent with wanting to discredit us because Oracle sees us as a threat.

"The greatest danger to PeopleSoft was that its customers would freeze planned purchases. But they refused to let that happen."

Conway also hinted at future strategy, and said that the company's commitment to open source technology would help with the future product roadmap which concentrates on "expansion, not consolidation".

The roadmap centres around two areas: the 'total ownership experience' and the 'real-time enterprise'.

Conway explained that he is committed to making PeopleSoft's and JD Edward's products easy to integrate with other applications and platforms, in order to drive down the total long-term cost of IT, while improving its products' ease-of-use.

He also claimed that web-enabling its applications is a top priority for the company.

In support, he unveiled an expanded customer service package that includes an extension of upgrade scripts from four to five years.