PeopleSoft has announced that it is one of the first software providers to implement the Unicode Standard in all core components of its application architecture.
According to Jan Coetzee, local PeopleSoft MD, its comprehensive support for Unicode, a global language standard, will allow customers to centrally maintain and manage implementations of PeopleSoft 8 in virtually every modern language in a single database. "This will enable multinational companies to better co-ordinate and streamline operations while reducing cost," he states.
The Unicode standard will be embedded into the PeopleSoft Internet Architecture, that, as Coetzee explains, enables the deployment of enterprise applications with a thin HTML client and XML-based integration capabilities. "The server-centric architecture reduces IT-related cost by eliminating the need for software on the computing device other than a standard Internet browser and by simplifying the integration of PeopleSoft applications with third-party software," he says.
He lists additional benefits of the embedded code, "PeopleSoft`s incorporation of Unicode will give multinational organisations the power to expand the number of languages their eBusiness systems support as PeopleSoft 8 supports the maintenance of data in well over 100 languages, a more than five-fold increase from previous releases."
The Unicode Standard, maintained by the Unicode Consortium, an industry standards body representing computer and software industry corporations and researchers, provides common, standardised means of interchanging, processing and displaying the written text of virtually every modern language. The current edition of the Unicode Standard contains over 49,000 characters, covering all the principal written languages of the Middle East and Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas and the Pacific Rim.
"PeopleSoft actively participates in the development of the Unicode Standard, holding full, voting membership in the Consortium," comments Coetzee, explaining that the Unicode Standard is fully synchronised with the International Organisation for Standardisation`s ISO/IEC 10646, providing a formal, internationally recognised basis for its character encoding.
Coetzee concludes, "With full support for multi-language standard, PeopleSoft 8 clients now have the ability to fully unify global operations on a real time basis, crucial to any business vying globally to reach customers all over the globe.
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PeopleSoft is a world leader in enterprise application software. PeopleSoft provides eBusiness applications for customer relationship management, human resource management, financials, and supply chain, along with a range of industry-specific solutions. For more than 4, 000 customers, PeopleSoft applications offer greater flexibility, rapid implementation, scalability across multiple databases and operating systems, and lower cost of ownership. Customers include some of the largest multi-national organisations in the world, as well as small- and medium-sized businesses. In addition to software, PeopleSoft offers PeopleSoft Advantage Customer Service, a comprehensive consulting, education and technical support programme. Headquartered in Pleasanton, California, PeopleSoft (www.peoplesoft.com) employs 7, 000 people and had 1999 revenues of $1.4 billion.