SAP and Peoplesoft

SAP, PeopleSoft, and Oracle SAP and PeopleSoft One of the ways in which databases play a role in SAP are the powerful tools that allow the user to implement easy data manipulation. Further, in cases in which new databases are required, SAP's ABAP/4 language "provides a solution," allowing businesses to create databases according to their customized needs. The power behind SAP and database management is contained in the access routines that allows the user to quickly and easily access any object from the database(s).

Specifically, mySAP Business Intelligence is widely touted as being "revolutionary" in its ability to allow users to input raw data and turn that data into "useable information" in business.

One great example of this is in the use of SAP by the Scotts Company, which uses mySap Business Intelligence as "end-to-end business intelligence solution," whereby the company can "integrate business information pertaining to inventory, internal manufacturing, and distribution data and leverages it beyond the enterprise to enhance communication and collaboration with its customers, vendors, and investors." In the case of PeopleSoft, it is widely touted as a "database-independent software package." (It supports Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL Server, among others).

Yet, PeopleSoft is an "e-commerce package," It is not a database management tool (and cannot do the things SAP can). In the simplest terms, PeopleSoft is a software application that manages data (as opposed to databases) and communications for a wide range of functions and uses. An example of how its database functions might be used includes, "using the Human Resources PeopleSoft database to create and fill open positions, request employee job data changes and run reports on employee job data information." 2.

The main reason that Oracle wants to purchase PeopleSoft is because of Oracle's weakness. After all, the competition is tougher in database software than ever before, and, although Oracle has been the database leader for many years, its future is not so clear. In short, the common wisdom seems to be that Oracle simply wants to increase its market share and viability.

Indeed, the increasingly harsh environment in which Oracle finds itself (boxed in with the likes of giant Microsoft and IBM), makes the idea of strengthening the company through the acquisition of PeopleSoft very attractive. After all, in acquiring PeopleSoft, Oracle can, one supposes, absorb the company's customer base, while increasing market share. The benefit for the actual consumer, however, is doubtful. Instead, it is a move-based less on "innovation" than on self-preservation. According to Dan Farber in Tech Update, " ..

given all the product overlaps between Oracle and PeopleSoft, integration challenges, and depletion of Oracle cash reserves, the acquisition appears to be far more defensive than offensive." He continues, "Ellison must have woken up one night last week in the middle of the night feeling choked by rivals SAP, the.