I don't have a ready reference for you, but I know PeopleSoft has been an absolute
disaster at Stony Brook. Installed as a data management tool for the
graduate school, it has brought
the system to a halt. My understanding is that university administrators would chuck
it in an instant if they had not already invested millions.
Joel Blau
Tim Bousquet wrote:
> At the repeated prodding of Michael P. I've begun
> research for an article on PeopleSoft, the
> administrative software firm. Seems the company's
> software system might be solely responsible for the
> bankruptch of Cleveland State University. I think this
> group may be interested in a few of the quotes below,
> especially how the role of the people who are supposed
> to run the systems was apparently entirely
> ignored--not unlike most every other assumption of our
> policy makers. Just gotta love that "those people are
> retiring" comment...
>
> **
> Auditors have warned Cleveland State University
> trustees that they are threatening the solvency of the
> school by continuing to spend down the institution's
> reserve fund. John J. Boyle III, CSU's interim vice
> president of finance, told trustees yesterday they
> must hold the line on spending and find ways to
> replenish the reserves. Boyle suggested a hiring
> freeze … To brace trustees for the news, he sent a
> memo earlier in the week in which he said auditors
> warned that "the university is depleting its reserves
> at a rate that threatens solvency." The school had $18
> million in reserves only two years ago, but by summer,
> the number is expected to dwindle to $5 million… The
> admonition is the latest throb from the school's
> PeopleSoft hangover. Most of the money pulled from the
> reserve fund has gone to correct the disastrous
> problems caused by that computer software. CSU's
> financial woes have escalated as the computer mess
> with PeopleSoft Inc. has played out. What was
> estimated to be a $4.2 million project to update the
> computer system will shoot past $15 million.
>
> The Plain Dealer is suing Cleveland State University
> to obtain a plan from a company on how to fix problems
> in the computer-software programs that the company
> sold to the university… Cleveland State refused to
> release the plan to the newspaper at the request of
> the company, PeopleSoft Inc. of Pleasanton, Calif.
> PeopleSoft does not want the information released
> because it contains trade secrets, Steve Swasey, the
> company's director of public relations, said
> yesterday. "What we bring to the customer is between
> us and the customer,'' he said… The Cleveland State
> plan, including staffing and training, would help that
> university manage its software. The university's Board
> of Trustees rejected the plan a week ago as
> inadequate. The company has said that the software
> works and that it has fulfilled its obligation to the
> university.
>
> **
> “Denver has spent $23.4 million on the city's new
> financial services computer system - 67 percent over
> budget. Most of that -- more than $18 million -- went
> to consultants who trained city employees how to work
> the system. Just $2 million was spent on software and
> $1.3 million on computers.”
>
> ***
> In Boston—“Chief Accountant Paul J. Roman … said
> employee complaints are "a matter of not picking up
> all the little nuances that they have to pick up."
>
> "There are some people who can't accept change,"
> Lasher said. "We have people out there in the
> departments who are still keeping written sets of
> books in addition to the computer. . . . Slowly, those
> people are retiring."
>
> **
> … San Francisco's school district has spent more than
> $ 5 million on a system that initially cost less than
> $ 300,000. Five years later, it still isn't working
> right.
>
> **
>
> Consultants hired by W.L. Gore & Associates, the
> closely held maker of Gore-Tex fabric, entered Mickey
> Mouse and Donald Duck into the company's PeopleSoft
> payroll system as a demonstration and couldn't get
> them out again before the paychecks started rolling.
>
> =====
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