Briefs

Not every tech company is suffering. PeopleSoft, whose
customer-relationship-management, supply-chain, human-resources, and
financial-management apps are designed to make companies more
efficient and cut costs, reported a great second quarter. Profit
was up 198% and revenue was up 27%. Moreover, company executives say
there's plenty of reason for continued optimism. CEO Craig Conway told
analysts during a conference call that PeopleSoft is more successful
than ever in winning customers over Oracle and SAP.

For the quarter, ended June 30, PeopleSoft posted a profit of $47.4
million, or 15 cents per diluted share, on revenue of $532.7 million,
compared with a profit of $15.9 million, or 6 cents, on revenue of
$420.2 million a year ago. Much of the revenue growth was attributed
to a 51% increase in licenses, and execs say they expect sales of the
PeopleSoft 8 CRM app, launched in June, to help continue that
licensing growth. This is the fifth straight quarter PeopleSoft has
reported record revenue and profit.

Conway says PeopleSoft is actually benefiting somewhat from the
economic slump in that companies are more focused than ever on
productivity and expenses. Nevertheless, sales cycles are lengthening,
he says. "We may have done better in Q2, but the rate of closing deals
in the pipeline decreased," says Conway.

See
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20010725S0001