PeopleSoft, User Group Continue Verbal Jousting

Computerworld - The dispute between PeopleSoft Inc. and the Quest user group continued last week, as officials from the two sides fired more verbal shots at each other in the wake of the software vendor's decision to withdraw its support for several Quest conferences.
Quest, an independent group for users of J.D. Edwards & Co.'s applications, detailed a list of conditions that PeopleSoft had sought in return for its participation in a conference held last week in Chicago and others scheduled for this month and February. PeopleSoft acquired J.D. Edwards last summer.
The conditions included a demand that PeopleSoft be allowed to review messages from the user group to its members before they were distributed. Quest said PeopleSoft also wanted it to retract a claim that the company would support its worldwide user conference, absolve PeopleSoft of any legal or financial obligations related to existing commitments, and return customer marketing data that J.D. Edwards had shared with the user group. Quest's board of directors rejected all but the last of the conditions.
"As an independent user group, we believe it is necessary to maintain the right to communicate with members frequently and in an open, unedited manner," said Quest President Barbara Schmit in comments that were made at the Chicago conference and posted on the Lexington, Ky.-based user group's Web site.
Quest's board felt that commitments made by J.D. Edwards "should be followed through on" by PeopleSoft, added Schmit, who is CIO at Computer Network Technology Corp. in Minneapolis.
PeopleSoft spokesman Steve Swasey acknowledged that the company initially committed to support the Chicago show and three other Quest events. But, he added, Quest falsely claimed that PeopleSoft would support its global and regional conferences through 2006.
"We just did not want Quest to convey that PeopleSoft is obligated when it's not," Swasey said. "We want the message to be honest." As for the customer data, PeopleSoft wanted its use discontinued because the information is outdated, according to Swasey. "We told Quest on Dec. 15 [that] they had seven days to comply, and they didn't. At that point, we said, 'You don't have a relationship with us.' "
The rift between PeopleSoft and Quest became public two weeks ago .
John Matelski, the city of Orlando's deputy CIO and a Quest board member, last week said that the user group "will continue to proactively try to re-establish a relationship with PeopleSoft. But until they're receptive to our overtures, there's not much that can be done."
The loss of PeopleSoft's support may have beenunavoidable, said Mitch Myers, vice president of operations at F.W. Murphy Instrumentation & Control Solutions in Tulsa, Okla. "My guess is that PeopleSoft has their own user group model," he said. "They can't afford to add another."
Dave Hyzy, director of IT at Benderson Development Co. in Buffalo, N.Y., resigned from Quest's board last month over its dealings with PeopleSoft, after just 11 days as a member. Hyzy last week said the user group's directors seem more interested in preserving their positions "than in working with PeopleSoft to resolve this rift in the best interests of the members."

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