PeopleSoft Africa says it is committed to the process of black economic empowerment (BEE) and providing either equity or equity equivalents.
Answering an audience question at a customer event in Johannesburg yesterday, PeopleSoft Africa MD Mike Evans said the company had been part of the creation of the ICT sector`s BEE charter.
"We are committed to providing equity or equity equivalents in SA, depending on how the charter goes," he said.
PeopleSoft became the world`s second-largest enterprise application software group (the largest is SAP) after last year`s acquisition of one-time competitor JD Edwards.
Henry Seddon, PeopleSoft director of product marketing for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), said at the same event that PeopleSoft intended to continue investing in all three of the product lines it has offered since the JD Edwards merger.
The product lines are PeopleSoft World (an IBM i-Series enterprise offering), PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne (a midrange enterprise solution set) and PeopleSoft Enterprise (a high-end solution for large global enterprises).
Seddon said the group would release a Linux version of EnterpriseOne later this year.
He added that PeopleSoft did not believe in a "one size fits all" approach, as different customers operated in different environments and had different needs. The group intends to retain all three product lines for the foreseeable future.
PeopleSoft has more than 3 800 customers in the EMEA region, with more than 200 of those in SA. Evans said while there was still the potential for strong growth in SA, the company also had multinational customers with operations in the rest of Africa, which were served from SA.
He said the company believed in the "African Renaissance" and was committed to the Nepad (New Partnership for Africa`s Development) initiative. "We have an African focus with a South African home," he added.
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