Following the aspersions cast by PeopleSoft Inc on the alleged lack of true client-server products at SAP AG and Oracle Corp (CI No 2,313), both companies have issued responses in their defence. Oracle says it has sold more than 150 copies of Oracle Personnel worldwide and not the derisory 10 claimed by PeopleSoft. Moreover, it is not using yesterday’s technology, and will, in fact, launch its second generation of applications, using Oracle Forms version 4, in spring of this year. SAP meantime declares that its client-server human resources module, part of the R/3 suite of products, has been on the market for a year, and that it has more than 125 customers worldwide. R/3, it says, is not a mainframe re-write, but was developed from the ground up – the Walldorf company invested more than $200m in building it and continues to spend heavily on it.
