Late last year, PeopleSoft won a NZ$37 million deal to supply Air New Zealand with financial and human resource management software to underpin a major project to overhaul the airline's business processes.
The airline today declared that its implementation was proceeding on track and its resolve to implement PeopleSoft's software appears completely unshaken.
"There is no compelling reason to change strategies around technologies simply because of possible changes to the ownership of the technology component," said Chris Alderson, director or Air New Zealand's project to implement the software, Connect.
"Any concerns about ongoing support and future development of PeopleSoft that may have been raised by the Oracle bid, are outweighed by the short to medium term benefits of completing the implementation."
Oracle launched its US$5.1 billion hostile cash bid to takeover PeopleSoft on June 9, just days after the latter proposed a friendly US$1.7 billion merger with J.D. Edwards. Oracle upped its offer to US$6.3 billion Wednesday after PeopleSoft entered a cash component into its offer to buy out J.D. Edwards.
The merger war has whipped up a storm of speculation concerning the impact that the Oracle takeover may have on PeopleSoft clients.
Oracle publicly stated that if its takeover bid is successful, it will discontinue development of PeopleSoft's suite of enterprise application creating a ground swell of unrest among PeopleSoft clients.
Gartner Research Director, Enterprise Applications, Kristian Steenstrup, said that Air New Zealand's position was entirely reasonable. According to Steenstrup, now was not a time to make sweeping judgements on how a potential takeover may affect PeopleSoft's clients.
Steenstrup said that customers who purchased PeopleSoft applications, taking a long term view to acquire functionality on faith they could mould it to the long term strategies of their industry or company, will be most vulnerable to a disruptive change if the takeover is successful.
"Quite a few people have brought PeopleSoft for tactical reasons... other companies may have bought it because they bought into the PeopleSoft vision. You might have cause for concern because that vision's now changing," said Steenstrup.
"The Air New Zealand programme of change in financials and HR is not technology driven, but business-process driven," said Air New Zealand's Alderson.
"PeopleSoft is an important component of that programme, however it only supports the change from a technology viewpoint and that technology is as sound as it was when the programme started in November 2002."
Industry observers have also raised concerns about Oracle's commitment to supporting PeopleSoft's applications if the takeover goes ahead.
Steenstrup said that those customers had a right to be worried about the "lack of exactness" in Oracle's announcements concerning its commitment to supporting PeopleSoft applications long term.
