PeopleSoft Inc. hopes to speed up its penetration beyond North America through a partnership with IBM Corp. to handle payrolls in European and other currencies.
In the partnership, which the companies announced yesterday, IBM's HR Access International Payroll will be integrated with PeopleSoft's Human Resources 7.5 suite. The combined application will operate not only in a foreign country's currency but incorporating its laws and policies, such as compliance with the Euro currency, said Mark Lane, international marketing manager for PeopleSoft in Reading, England.
The first integrations, for the English pound and French franc, are due around July 1999 or August 1999, Lane said. More countries will be added in fast succession after that, starting with the rest of Europe and continuing on to South America, he added.
PeopleSoft decided to partner with IBM in order to fill customers' requests for global payroll functions before its own versions come out with Human Resources 8.0, sometime in the year 2000, Lane said. Even after that, PeopleSoft will continue to integrate with IBM's payroll software because it is popular in Europe, he added.
The company has about 300 HR customers in Europe, half of them in France and Great Britain, Lane added.
PeopleSoft Inc., based in Pleasanton, California, is at http://www.peoplesoft.com. IBM Corp., in Armonk, New York, is at http://www.ibm.com; information on HR Access is at http://www.hraccess.com.
(Stannie Holt is an InfoWorld reporter.)