PeopleSoft CEO Conway maintains defiant tone

IDG News Service - With 15,000 attendees at PeopleSoft Inc.'s Connect 2004 user show waiting to hear how the company would handle Oracle Corp.'s lingering hostile takeover bid, PeopleSoft CEO Craig Conway tackled the issue early in his opening keynote address today.
"Have you ever had a bad dream that wouldn't seem to end?" he asked, scoring applause from the customer-filled crowd. The applause turned to cheers when he ticked off all the obstacles that still block Oracle and said the recent court decision dismissing the U.S. Department of Justice's attempt to kill the deal on antitrust grounds "does not mean PeopleSoft will be acquired by Oracle."
Conway kept his Oracle-related remarks brief, but he maintained the defiant tone PeopleSoft has struck throughout Oracle's 15-month campaign to win control of the company through an all-cash tender offer to PeopleSoft's shareholders. That offer is now valued at $7.7 billion.
"PeopleSoft has had a year that has tested our resolve. It has been a year that stretched our resources," Conway told the San Francisco audience. "But we didn't blink, and we're not going to blink."
Conway wove emotional appeals throughout his upbeat speech, pausing at one point to salute PeopleSoft founder and chairman David Duffield and wish him a happy birthday. Later, Conway earned a round of laughter for a story about what he called the other, non-Oracle great stress in his life -- his 11-year-old son's private school applications.
Conway spent most of his address highlighting PeopleSoft's recent accomplishments, including what he deemed the successful integration of J.D. Edwards & Co. and an array of updates in PeopleSoft's core Enterprise product line and in the EnterpriseOne and World lines it picked up from J.D. Edwards. He also detailed a sales and development pact PeopleSoft announced today with IBM, an alliance he called the deepest so far between the companies.

Conway used the occasion to take a few swipes at SAP AG, which has experienced strong sales in the past year while PeopleSoft has struggled. SAP's NetWeaver middleware initiative is nothing more than an attempt to camouflage weaknesses in its software design, he charged. Conway characterized IBM's rival WebSphere portfolio as "exponentially more mature, and already trusted."
One PeopleSoft customer attending the keynote speech, Agilent Technologies Inc. Americas HRIT Development Manager Andy Nallappan, said he sees the IBM alliance as a good move on PeopleSoft's part -- and one that may create yet another obstacle for Oracle, as PeopleSoft extends its ties to one of Oracle's main rivals.
Agilent is an Oracle customer -- its infrastructure