Marc L. Songini

Business applications maker PeopleSoft Inc. has cut a deal with integration technology vendor Ascential Software Corp. to handle the integration plumbing for its line of corporate performance management software.

Applications infrastructure company BEA Systems Inc. has inked a five-year deal to sell its software to a global airline consortium whose members will be able to exploit group purchasing discounts.

The relationship between business applications maker PeopleSoft Inc. and the independent user group it inherited when it purchased J.D. Edwards & Co. appears to have gotten a bit chilly, with the software maker this week bowing out of a 600-customer strong conference it had previously been slated to attend.

Computer Associates International Inc. has at last decided to sell off ACCPAC International Inc., its software provider for small- to medium-sized businesses.

Executives from Oracle Corp. reaffirmed their intention to pursue the company's much-publicized attempt to buy PeopleSoft Inc. and said Oracle plans to propose its own slate of pro-acquisition directors for PeopleSoft shareholders to vote on next year.

Users of the World ERP applications developed by J.D. Edwards & Co. are lobbying new owner PeopleSoft Inc. to keep the aging green-screen software from falling behind the vendor's other products in terms of functionality.

Microsoft Corp. is pushing to make its SQL Server database more attractive to corporate users by simplifying its configuration and management while beefing up its scalability.

SAP AG this week released an upgrade of its portal software that runs on operating systems other than Windows NT and includes real-time collaboration tools, such as an instant messaging service.