PeopleSoft founder back in the enterprise game

The two-year hostile takeover battle between Oracle and PeopleSoft has apparently not left Dave Duffield winded.

David Duffield

Duffield, the founder of PeopleSoft, is launching a new enterprise applications company. The semi-secretive new organization gives a hint of its direction on its Web site, at www.davesnextmove.com, suggesting a focus on issues related to enterprise resource planning.

"I have teamed with some of the brightest minds in the industry to create the next generation of applications to meet the demands of today's extended enterprise," the site's main page states, in a comment attributed to Duffield. "Stay tuned."

On another page, the site says: "Organizations must address change by surrounding their rigid ERP system with newer point solutions. Today's point solutions provide a stopgap but don't address the inflexibility of the monolithic ERP system. Today's extended enterprise needs a fundamentally different technology approach, which facilitates customization as well as seamless integration with third-party solutions."

The company's approach to enterprise applications will also include open-source software, XML, Web services and object-oriented techniques, the site says.

"Our focus is to tackle the traditional ERP markets in a nontraditional way," the company states.

Duffield is also drawing from his past to establish his new management team.

Aneel Bhusri, co-founder and chief vision officer of the new company, was a PeopleSoft director. He's also a general partner with Greylock Partners.

Stan Swete, vice president of products and technology, served as PeopleSoft's head of products and technology. John Malatesta, chief architect, was PeopleSoft's principal systems architect.

Karen Beaman, chief human capital management strategist, is the only non-PeopleSoft employee listed on the portion of the site titled "Leadership team." Beaman is a senior global adviser and principal managing partner of business consultancy firm The Jeitosa Group.

Representatives of the new company were not immediately available to comment.

Duffield founded PeopleSoft in 1987 and also served as its chief executive. In 1999, he left the role of CEO, handing the job to Craig Conway, who was fired late last year after accusations emerged that he had misled analysts about the effect the protracted struggle with Oracle was having on the company's sales. Duffield took over again as CEO when Conway left, but the company founder stepped down and resigned from the company about 10 days before the Oracle takeover was completed.