April 12, 2004 (Computerworld) --
Quest International Users Group, the independent organization that has been at odds with PeopleSoft Inc. in recent months, is losing some of its members to the software vendor's main coalition of user groups, raising new questions about Quest's ability to survive without any ties to PeopleSoft. Quest officials confirmed that two special-interest groups, the World Advisory Council and the Real Estate Group, have decided to join a loosely controlled network of about 170 PeopleSoft user groups that are organized by industry, product or region. The World Advisory Council includes users of J.D. Edwards & Co.'s green-screen ERP applications, now called PeopleSoft World, and the other defecting group is made up of companies in the real estate industry. In December, PeopleSoft severed its relationship with Quest, which the company inherited as a user group when it acquired J.D. Edwards last summer. After talks between the two sides broke down, PeopleSoft opted not to participate in several regional Quest meetings as well as the user group's centerpiece event, the Quest Global Conference, which is due to be held in Denver in June . PeopleSoft's lack of support for Quest played a big role in convincing members of the two special-interest groups to leave, said Dave Hyzy, director of IT at Benderson Development Co. in Buffalo, N.Y. "The unalterable fact is that a software conference without the software vendor present is a social event pretending to be a substantive conference," he said. Benderson uses PeopleSoft World, and Hyzy is a member of both the World Advisory Council and the Real Estate Group. He said PeopleSoft has already taken "solid initial steps" to start the process of bringing the special-interest groups under its umbrella. Not 'All or Nothing' John Matelski, a Quest board member and president of the Lexington, Ky.-based organization's special-interest groups, said that despite the dispute with PeopleSoft, Quest encourages its members to engage in an "integrated" model that includes working with the vendor. "It does not need to be an all-or-nothing proposition," said Matelski, who is deputy CIO for the city of Orlando. But Matelski and several other Quest members said they think PeopleSoft wants the user group to wither. They claimed that PeopleSoft is forbidding its employees from participating in any Quest-related activities and is offering Quest members a special discount to attend its Connect user conference, which is scheduled for September in San Francisco. "Most of the passive and active actions which PeopleSoft has taken since December would seem to give credence to the claim that PeopleSoft is actively trying to kill Quest," Matelski said. PeopleSoft spokesman Steve Swasey said the company is offering Connect discounts to J.D. Edwards
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