In-Depth

Business Objects Delivers on PeopleSoft Integration

Company makes good on its promised integration between Enterprise 6 and Peoplesoft's EPM suite—the only copy to offer such integration to date.

• By Stephen Swoyer
• 10/29/2003

Business Objects SA last week made good on a promise when it completed the integration between its Enterprise 6 business intelligence (BI) suite and PeopleSoft’s Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) suite.

Officials from both companies say the integration between the two products doesn’t constitute a mere promise on a press release, either. Instead, they say, they’ve collaborated to create a set of analytics and reports that support PeopleSoft’s suite of EPM Functional Warehouse modules. PeopleSoft’s Functional Warehouse modules provide packaged analytic functionality for a variety of different applications, including Customer Relationship Management, Enterprise Service Automation, Financial Management, Profitability Management, Supply Chain Management, and Workforce Analytics.

That makes Business Objects the only BI vendor that has achieved this level of technical integration with PeopleSoft, officials from both companies said.

Earlier this year, PeopleSoft obtained the rights to resell Business Objects’ BI tools for use with its PeopleSoft EPM suite. The two partners say that they plan to take this arrangement to even further later on this year, when PeopleSoft releases more than 140 reports additional reports, 14 universes, and a security bridge that will link Business Objects’ Enterprise 6 stack with its EPM Functional Warehouse modules.

““Business Objects is clearly committed to helping customers extend the value of their PeopleSoft investment by developing the most complete integration with our EPM products,” said Chuck Teller, vice president and general manager of PeopleSoft’s enterprise solutions group, in a prepared release. PeopleSoft officials promise further collaboration with Business Objects, on both the technology development and reseller fronts.

PeopleSoft has sought to position itself as a major player in the emerging market for what research firm Gartner Inc. calls corporate performance management (CPM)—what PeopleSoft terms EPM—which Gartner describes as “the methodologies, metrics, processes, and systems used to monitor and manage” business performance across an enterprise. PeopleSoft’s EPM 8.8 suite is designed to provide real-time monitoring and analysis of business performance.

As a Business Objects value-added reseller, PeopleSoft also resells that company’s WebIntelligence Web-based query, reporting, and analysis product.