PeopleSoft's AnalysisPeopleSoft's Analysis

PeopleSoft Inc. this week will debut a new release of its Enterprise Warehouse software with data-analysis capabilities for enterprise service automation applications. Release 8.8 also will offer more business metrics and data-extraction tools, and the ability to use Web services to share analytical results.

Enterprise Warehouse is part of PeopleSoft AppConnect, a suite of data, application, and portal integration software the vendor unveiled at its user conference in August. Enterprise Warehouse in-cludes models for analyzing data from financial, supply-chain management, workforce, and customer-relationship management applications. The new release adds data models for analyzing information from PeopleSoft's Enterprise Service Automation application for administering large-scale service projects.

PeopleSoft has a straightforward, coherent strategy with its data warehouse software, says IDC analyst Dan Vesset. "Whenever they come out with new [analytical application] modules, it's very easy to add them on," he says, adding that PeopleSoft has an edge over rivals SAP and Oracle in application-specific data warehouses.

The new release can import data from a wider variety of sources with 1,700 data extraction "maps"--up from 1,100 in the previous release--for pulling data from legacy systems and applications from other vendors and loading it into Enterprise Warehouse. Release 8.8 also has 1,200 business performance metrics, up from around 1,000 in the earlier version.

A new interface makes it easier to manage and maintain a warehouse based on the PeopleSoft software. And the results of data analysis can now be published to any application that supports Web services.

Enterprise Warehouse will be available this month. Pricing is based on a customer's revenue and other criteria.