With a little help from Java, PeopleSoft is taking its back-office business applications to the Web. The applications software maker will release an updated, Java-enabled product in the first quarter of 1998 and announced on Monday a pilot program for some of its corporate clients.
"Our customers want Web-based solutions," said Dean Alms, director of Internet strategy at PeopleSoft. Until now the company has turned to partnerships with other technology companies to put applications on the Web, or on the phone by linking to an interactive voice-response system, on a customer-by-customer basis. But with Java's latest release, JDK 1.1, customers will be able to deploy the applications directly on the Net without any outside techno-wizardry.
"We want to put as much online as possible," said Manny Fueyo, an employment representative at Netscape, who looks forward to a day when job openings will be input directly by managers, and employees might enroll themselves in benefit plans with no paperwork. Internet deployment will make PeopleSoft software accessible to occasional users, like employees or suppliers, for so-called self-service applications like changing investment instructions in a 401(k) plan or checking on payment schedules.
PeopleSoft client/server applications - which include software for financial management, human resources, distribution, and manufacturing - currently have a Windows front end. With the next product release, customers will be able to use the same PeopleSoft Tool to deploy applications via Windows or via Java. About a half-dozen corporate clients will test the product in the meantime.
