Does this mean Quest will go away ??

[got_to_love_jde]

Hi All,
This sure doesn't look good for Quest. I think all of us should look at continuing our Quest membership to insure an independant voice in product development.
Regards,
Dave
.
.
.
.
.

Here is the PeopleSoft E-Mail:

I would like to take this opportunity to update you on our relationship with Quest, our participation in Quest events, and communicate the progress we have made implementing the new PeopleSoft user
group model.

Regarding the upcoming Quest West event, PeopleSoft communicated to the Quest Board last December that we would not be participating in this event. We have been communicating to Quest for several months that we would support one user group model—a model developed by a team of PeopleSoft® Enterprise, EnterpriseOne, and World customers, Quest board members, and led by PeopleSoft® EnterpriseOne and World customer, Jim Whalen.

PeopleSoft Support of Customer-Designed Model
The new user group model, announced last month by the International Customer Advisory Board (ICAB), brings together the best of J.D. Edwards and PeopleSoft user group programs, and enables you to participate in groups aligned by region, industry, and product.

In October 2003, PeopleSoft communicated to Quest that we would be participating in and supporting the ICAB user group integration process and the team’s recommendation. The outcome of this work highlighted significant overlap in the services that PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, and Quest provided user groups. Quest provided user group services to PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne and PeopleSoft® World customers who paid an annual membership fee. The customer team recommended developing one standard set of services to support all customers—PeopleSoft World, EnterpriseOne, and Enterprise customers. In the new model, all customers receive these services from PeopleSoft at no additional charge.

In support of the customer team recommendation, PeopleSoft is providing services for more than 150 independent user groups around the world. In the first quarter alone, we will participate in 35 user
group meetings with the opportunity to speak with more than 3,000 customers. These meetings are a great opportunity for us to meet with customers, communicate our plans and strategies, and hear from you. We encourage you to attend these customer-led regional, product, and industry user group events. You can view a list of user groups online, including the contact person for each group.

One Annual User Conference Program
As we previously communicated, PeopleSoft will sponsor one annual user conference for the benefit of all customers: PeopleSoft Connect. This user event is an excellent opportunity to leverage your PeopleSoft investment, hear first-hand from PeopleSoft executives, speak one-on-one with PeopleSoft experts, network with other PeopleSoft customers, and participate in hundreds of product, industry, and services breakout sessions. This year, we are pleased to announce the formation of the PeopleSoft Connect Program Advisory Committee (CPAC)—a team of customers guiding the content and strategy of this year’s conference. By seeking additional customer input in the planning process, we will deliver an even more valuable user conference experience. PeopleSoft is focusing its energy and resources on one annual user conference, and as we communicated to the Quest Board last August, PeopleSoft will not be participating in Quest Global.

Moving Forward
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the customers who developed the new model. Representing an inclusive cross section of our customers, these individuals invested a great deal of time to build a user group model that serves the needs of all customers. We believe they met their design objective of bringing together the best of all the models. Your feedback is important to us as we continually strive to enrich your customer experience, so please feel free to email me with your thoughts and comments.

Sincerely,


Phil Wilmington
Executive Vice President

 

[Robert Robinson]

Pardon my ignorance of history, but wasn't this the same relationship that existed between Quest and JDE, circa 1990? It took a long time to get to the more "cozy" relationship that Quest and JDE had over the last few years...it took user/members proving the viability of Quest that finally opened JDE's eyes, I'm told...

________________________________

From: [email protected] on behalf of got_to_love_jde
Sent: Fri 2/20/2004 8:07 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Does this mean Quest will go away ??



Hi All,
This sure doesn't look good for Quest. I think all of us should look at continuing our Quest membership to insure an independant voice in product development.
Regards,
Dave
.
.
.
.
.

Here is the PeopleSoft E-Mail:

I would like to take this opportunity to update you on our relationship with Quest, our participation in Quest events, and communicate the progress we have made implementing the new PeopleSoft user
group model.

Regarding the upcoming Quest West event, PeopleSoft communicated to the Quest Board last December that we would not be participating in this event. We have been communicating to Quest for several months that we would support one user group model-a model developed by a team of PeopleSoft® Enterprise, EnterpriseOne, and World customers, Quest board members, and led by PeopleSoft® EnterpriseOne and World customer, Jim Whalen.

PeopleSoft Support of Customer-Designed Model
The new user group model, announced last month by the Inte!
rnational Customer Advisory Board (ICAB), brings together the best of J.D. Edwards and PeopleSoft user group programs, and enables you to participate in groups aligned by region, industry, and product.

In October 2003, PeopleSoft communicated to Quest that we would be participating in and supporting the ICAB user group integration process and the team's recommendation. The outcome of this work highlighted significant overlap in the services that PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, and Quest provided user groups. Quest provided user group services to PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne and PeopleSoft® World customers who paid an annual membership fee. The customer team recommended developing one standard set of services to support all customers-PeopleSoft World, EnterpriseOne, and Enterprise customers. In the new model, all customers receive these services from PeopleSoft at no additional charge.

In support of the customer team recommendation, PeopleSoft is providing services for mor!
e than 150 independent user groups around the world. In the first quarter alone, we will participate in 35 user
group meetings with the opportunity to speak with more than 3,000 customers. These meetings are a great opportunity for us to meet with customers, communicate our plans and strategies, and hear from you. We encourage you to attend these customer-led regional, product, and industry user group events. You can view a list of user groups online, including the contact person for each group.

One Annual User Conference Program
As we previously communicated, PeopleSoft will sponsor one annual user conference for the benefit of all customers: PeopleSoft Connect. This user event is an excellent opportunity to leverage your PeopleSoft investment, hear first-hand from PeopleSoft executives, speak one-on-one with PeopleSoft experts, network with other PeopleSoft customers, and participate in hundreds of product, industry, and services breakout sessions. This year, we!
are pleased to announce the formation of the PeopleSoft Connect Program Advisory Committee (CPAC)-a team of customers guiding the content and strategy of this year's conference. By seeking additional customer input in the planning process, we will deliver an even more valuable user conference experience. PeopleSoft is focusing its energy and resources on one annual user conference, and as we communicated to the Quest Board last August, PeopleSoft will not be participating in Quest Global.

Moving Forward
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the customers who developed the new model. Representing an inclusive cross section of our customers, these individuals invested a great deal of time to build a user group model that serves the needs of all customers. We believe they met their design objective of bringing together the best of all the models. Your feedback is important to us as we continually strive to enrich your customer experience, so please feel fre!
e to email me with your thoughts and comments.

Sincerely,


Phil Wilmington
Executive Vice President
SQL 2000 SP1, One World XE Update 7, SP 20 H1, Metaframe XP
--------------------------
To view this thread, go to: http://www.jdelist.com/ubb/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=OW&Number=68252

This is the JDELIST One World / XE Mailing List. To stop receiving these messages, login to http://www.jdelist.com/forums, click Control Panel, then click Edit by "Subscribe / Unsubscribe from receiving board posts by email, change message notifications, etc." and adjust your subscription preferences. JDEList is not affiliated with JDEdwards®




**********************************************************************
This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and
intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they
are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify
the system manager.
**********************************************************************



RRobinson CPA/CITP,CNE
OW Xe, SP21_G1, AS/400 V5 R1, Windows TSE
Big Ten JD Edwards Users Group
Plymouth, Michigan, USA

 

[KSmithCPA]

Peoplesoft has been very clear... They have been trying to get rid of Quest since day one. They view the "independence" of Quest as some kind of threat.

The best thing I read in the whole memo what that the Peoplesoft user group was at no additional cost. That means companies can maintain their Quest memberships without any extra cost. The real decisions will be what conferences to attend.

My biggest issue with Peoplesoft is that they just want Quest to disappear. They won't allow Quest to buy a booth at their conference like any other Peoplesoft vendor. Rather than embrace Quest, an organization made up of their own customers, they just want to squash it.

Peoplesoft doesn't want customers... Peoplesoft wants cows that they can heard any which way they want. Because once you've bought their software, what are you going to do... Run out and buy Oracle? The last thing they want is their customers banning together and leveraging PS to conform to their needs...

I agree with Dave. We should continue to support Quest for at least another year or two and find out if it is a sustainable organization. If Quest can continue to thrive, PS will have to reconsider it's decision to not participate.

What's so wrong with having a joint Peoplesoft/Quest annual conference?

IMOHO

 

[DBohner-(db)]

Got_to_Love_(peoplesoft??),

What was the date of that scribe? It is always nice to know if we are covering old news or new news...

There are references, within, to times - but, since there is no date, we don't know when's being referenced...

Appreciated!

db

 

[tmackin]

Well, I wasn't able to find the list of user groups and contacts. Has
anyone? How long will it take to get the same quality support, etc for JDE
users that we have been accustomed to from local user groups and Quest!



Sr. Business Systems Analyst
OFS Fitel, LLC
OW B7333 Xe SP20 Upd 6, NT SP6a, SQL 7.0 SP3, Create!form

 

[got_to_love_jde]

Hi Daniel,
I received it this morning (2/20/04).
Dave

 

[libbi_fletcher]

Attached is the letter sent this a.m. from my V.P. of Information =
Systems. She is pretty fed up. I would encourage everyone who feels =
this way to do the same.
Libbi Fletcher
HoMedics, Inc.

 

[tmackin]

No attachment found?



Sr. Business Systems Analyst
OFS Fitel, LLC
OW B7333 Xe SP20 Upd 6, NT SP6a, SQL 7.0 SP3, Create!form

 

[Eric]

Libbi,

Please update (edit) your post on the forum with your attachment. Attachments are stripped from incoming JDELIST mailing list messages.

Thanks.

 

[libbi_fletcher]

My team and I will continue our QUEST membership and will be attending
QUEST events in the future (including QUEST global in June). We
are an INDEPENDENT user group, and seek to remain such. We have
no current or future plans to join any other groups.

I have been extremely disappointed in the unwillingness of the Peoplesoft
organization to participate in the Midwest User Group meeting, and the SIG
event (we participated in both). Prior to the SIG event, I was on a phone call
with Steve Comes and urged him to "release" our former JDE contacts to participate
by meeting with us at the Broadmoor. This looks like stonewalling, and
reflects poorly on Peoplesoft. Unfortunately, the relationship between
Peoplesoft and its JDE customer base continues to deteriorate with
the refusal to meet your customers like me at other events like QUEST West.
In my view you are continuing to sow seeds of distrust that will only
make any possibility of rationalizing or consolidating your user
community even more difficult. As I explained to Mr. Comes, meeting
with QUEST members at Quest events during this past year would
have been THE best way to get the broad buy-in you need...it would
have in effect been a way to show that you are "extending your hand"
to the JDE community, and recognizing our constituency.

We have no sense of "identity" with whatever type of user forum you
are putting together. You may have been able to convince yourselves
that you have the broad buy-in of the JDE community, but you DO NOT.
Effectively, from my perspective, Peoplesoft has come along an put
a "body block" between my company and the people at JDE that
we have formed relationships over the years. I feel bullied by you.
Last summer, after Quest Global I could never have believed that
Peoplesoft could have in any way made Oracle look good--but
you have exceeded my expectations on that point.

I respectfully ask that you suspend sending me e-mails like this one
that try to convince me with WORDS that I should support an organization
other than Quest. Once I see ACTIONS, then I will feel that you
really do care about the JDE community. Participation in Quest West
would be a great start. I know there are many, many others like
me out there.

Additionally, please take my name off the mailing list for the Leadership Summit, or
any other "user" events until this situation is resolved with our Quest organization. Thank you.

Respectfully yours,
Katherine Matson
VP Information Systems
HoMedics
248-863-3000 ext. 1144

 

[got_to_love_jde]

Re: RE: Does this mean Quest will go away ??

WOW !

Gosh, that was a strong message ! I hope someone is listeing.
Dave

 

[Robert Robinson]

Re: RE: Does this mean Quest will go away ??

Unfortunately, they will NOT listen to the first such missive...
or the second...
or the third...
or the 500th...
but they WILL have to listen if a good percentage of their new user base refuses to go quietly into that great goodnight, and stands up for what they have had...an independent voice in the development of the software that they use.

I believe that the difference in approach is summed up by the different customer departments:

PeopleSoft has the department of "Customer Care"
JDE had the department of "Customer Advocacy"...

remember though, this customer advocacy bent did not spring up overnight; it was won by the users, realizing that they needed a say in the software development, then fighting to "win" that partnership...

It is, my friends, a fight that we must fight again...

 

[jean_driscoll]

This is a piece of an article I tried to get published with JDETips. Hopefully it explains some of the emotions on each side:

According to information I got from this year’s Quest SIG Forum, although PeopleSoft agreed to support the Quest user group functions this Spring, last month PeopleSoft presented Quest with a list of requirements in order to gain their support. This list includes a statement that PeopleSoft would approve ALL communications that were published to the user group. PeopleSoft wants Quest to retract all of the communications that they have published so far. Quest was confused by this, as up to now, Quest has not communicated anything that should create paranoia in California. It takes time to build trust in a new relationship, but since Quest is an independent organization, it should have the ability to publish whatever opinions they desire. Quest does not want to be filtered by Big Brother.

Another requirement for PeopleSoft’s participation in Quest Global Conference 2004 was that Quest Global be a smaller conference, focusing on the SIG portion. Quest is reorganizing their conference to some extent. PeopleSoft wanted Quest to cancel this year’s Quest SIG White Paper Forum. Quest refused this request, as the white paper forum is where Quest gathers its customer requirements.

And then the other big requirement was for Quest to absolve PeopleSoft of all Legal obligations and return all customer data that was provided by JDEdwards. Quest returned all of the data, I’m not sure about the other.

On January 5, 2004 PeopleSoft announced its withdrawal from any Quest activities. Now it’s an all out battle. Now the SIG’s are making choices whether to align with the vendor or whether to enjoy the support and learning opportunities with Quest. The Real Estate SIG has already parted company with Quest, in hopes of staying in good terms with PeopleSoft. The Migration Advisory Council and the Technology SIG have been approached by PeopleSoft and may not be far behind. Customers who belong to Quest are questioning Quest’s ability to be the voice of the customer in the development cycle, although PeopleSoft has agreed to review white papers.

PeopleSoft does not have any independent user groups and does not see the value in supporting one. PeopleSoft works as one integrated company and wants to interact with its customers in the same way. PeopleSoft feels that it has the service structure to support customers’ requirements. They will support only their own conference in California, called PeopleSoft Connect. Quest was allowed a booth at last year’s Connect in order to help JDEdwards’ customers feel more at home. Some of the Quest members attended. The word is, the conference was just a marketing ploy with only Business Partners allowed, the ‘instructional’ presentations were also marketing oriented. A far cry from seeing new technology and vendor offerings, getting first hand customer experience presentations and being part of the requirements gathering for your ERP vendor’s development cycle. Some Quest members that attended Connect saw that even though they are sizable customers, like Shell Canada, LTD and Johnson and Johnson, they were still categorized at the conference as medium-sized customers, because they use EnterpriseOne instead of Enterprise software.

PeopleSoft is a much larger company than JDEdwards was. PeopleSoft spokespersons told us last year that they bought JDEdwards in order to reach the small to mid-size company market. So we believed. Instead of an independent user group, PeopleSoft has ICAB, the International Customer Advisory Board, made up of 12 members, picked by PeopleSoft. They have opened 4 new positions for representation from JDEdwards’ customer base. In order for a JDEdwards customer to become an ICAB member, PeopleSoft was at first requiring that customer to relinquish their Quest membership, though later PeopleSoft retracted this requirement. At this time, one of the four positions has been filled. I’m not positive of ICAB’s normal function, but they do have sub-teams working on the PeopleSoft-JDEdwards customer integration as well as serving on the Connect Program Advisory Council. PeopleSoft also supports a group of Regional User Groups (RUG) like the JDE Local User Groups, Industry User Groups (IUG) like the Quest SIG, and Product Advisory Councils (PAC). Regional and Industry User groups I do believe allow the general customer population. The members of the Product Advisory Councils are invited by PeopleSoft to serve on the council. All of these user groups are supported and regulated by PeopleSoft. PeopleSoft is in the process of creating new PACs for EnterpriseOne products. PeopleSoft is also working to merge the Quest Local User Groups (LUG), National User groups and International groups in with their Regional groups. PeopleSoft foresees retaining the PACs, and then also forming Product user groups. I think the difference is that the PAC members are still picked by PeopleSoft, while the Product user groups will allow the general customer population. And they say this will be more efficient.

Some profane that the battle is a pissing contest, others say that it’s all about money. However, the rift is causing current and future customers alike to take a closer look at PeopleSoft’s relationship with its customers. As one customer put I it: We bought JDE in the 90’s. The ERP package was amortized in the 90’s. We want stability out of our software vendor. We already have users in our company using different ERP packages throughout the World. Why stay with an ERP package, whose company is in a battle with its own customer user group? This is even causing battles within our own company. We are already talking to the other ERP vendors about moving everyone over to the product supported by a vendor with no such discord. This rift is proving to be bad news for the vendor.

Whether or not some of the SIGs pull away from Quest, I believe that there is value and staying involved with both. Some of their companies are ruling that their company will align with the vendor and are giving their employees no choice but to accept roles in PACs. I like the idea of keeping good communications open with the new PACs, to keep a line open to the development effort, but still being involved in Quest for the Quest Global conference, providing our own user support. Some companies of course cannot afford to allow their employees spend time with both. Some customers are worried about having too small a company and not being heard in the larger groups. They admit that within Quest they are still a small company, but the Quest SIGs are open to ideas and trying to help solve small company problems as well as their own. We will wait and see if the PeopleSoft groups afford all customers the same opportunities. Quest is still keeping communications going with PeopleSoft. Quest says that they want to work with the integration sub-team and merge the group in to their structure. It remains to be seen whether they will be assimilated. Customers hopefully will not have to make a choice between the two groups as the choice may be to go with another ERP vendor. Quest board members are still looking for direction from their members. If you are a member and have an opinion, please sign onto www.Questdirect.org and let them know how you feel.

 

[JeanMcC]

Hi, I'm new to JDEList. We are both a JDE customer and a service provider. One of our CNC specialists pointed out this thread to me and I just had to reply.

Our company has attended all the recent Quest events and the PSConnect conference last fall. I totally agree with the sentiment that Quest is customers helping customers and the PSConnect conference was fun - and a slick marketing tool. There was some education there, too, and let's remember that it happened fairly soon after the merger so maybe it will be different this year.

I can also concur with what has been written about what Quest is saying and attempting to do. Allari, my company, produces objective reports for our customers on each of the conferences we attend. In the Quest MidWest Conference report, the entire timeline of PeopleSoft/Quest events is reported from a Barbara Schmit (Volunteer President of Quest) speech. That same presentation was provided at the recent SIG Forum and is updated in our SIG Forum report.

I've just finished attending three different local user groups. They all chose to join the ICAB structure. PeopleSoft told them that if they didn’t, PeopleSoft could not support them with speakers, etc. Only one of the groups was truly presented with an alternative.

The basic message is that we do keep up with this. And, yes, we are consultants. We have to.

I want to add our voice that an independent user group is vital to the health of the software serving the companies. As an independent group we can look at the entirety of the software experience – warts as well as polished advantages.

Let’s keep Quest alive!

Jean McClelland
Allari Solutions

If anyone would like a copy of any of our reports, please let me know and I’ll send it to you. We have reports for PSConnect, Quest East, Quest MidWest and SIG Forum.

We are about to attend Quest West. We certainly can’t miss that one!

 

[mfletcher]

What really sank in at the Broadmoor is this is not an either/or situation for us. I plan to encourage my agency to continue support for Quest and participate in the new PeopleSoft models. This make take several years to shake out and I plan to hedge our bets in the meantime.

 

[Robert Robinson]

My boss brought up a very good point; this schism between PeopleSoft and Quest stands to make the content weaker in BOTH meetings that it would be if both entities worked together. How much weaker, we will not know unless we go.

 

[DBohner-(db)]

RRob,

Sadly, I think most of us agree - that the seperation of PPS and Quest will stifle the final product. I believe that the two organizations (mostly Quest) are so busy bickering - that they are not supporting their customers (us).

There was a time when the belief, 'Competition improves the product' was the mainstay. However - Quest seems to be so twisted by the fact that PPS would 'shoulder' them, that they are not doing an attiquate job meeting our needs. They need to stop whining and start supporting 'US' instead of taxing their resources trying to court the new girlfriend.

If Quest really interested in dating PPS, they should try to show that they are worthy - Quest should not continue the STALKING RAMPAGE. Quest should do its best to prove they are valued and move on - if they are the best option, PPS will eventually recognize the fact!

What ever happend to the phrase Win-Win? Instead, it has become a Whine-Whine - and we are all loosing. PPS hasn't needed an external organization to pressure them to make decisisions and to aid in the support of their customers before - why do they need Quest to do that now? Quest needs to step up to the plate and be a shining example of what a third party can do to enhance customer relations - and stop the bickering...

So far, all I've seen from Quest is vapor-ware. They are telling PPS how great Quest is for PPS by creating confusions, decension and a great deal of infighting. Quest needs to just cut the cord, be what they are and show PPS what they are capable of.

Don't get me wrong - Quest is a good organization. I support them completely. But, they haven't proved anything to PPS that would enhance PPS beyond the organizations that PPS already has setup.

db

 

[KSmithCPA]

DB,

While I agree with your conclusion; Quest needs to go it alone until PeopleSoft can no longer ignore it, I disagree with much of your rhetoric.

As far as the two groups “bickering”, I don’t think that is the case at all. Remember, the Quest leadership is made up of volunteers who all have other “Real” jobs. I’m sure the board members would not have been all that broken up if the Quest membership had decided to disband the organization and go quietly into the Peoplesoft herd… (Mooo… <smile> see my other post in this thread.) I’m sure they wouldn’t mind fewer meetings and less travel and go back to just doing their regular jobs. The board is just trying it’s best to represent the membership’s wish for Quest to remain an independent organization.

In my opinion, this is a replay of what happened between the two organizations…..

PeopleSoft buys JD Edwards, but has to rush into the transaction to fend off Oracle. PS doesn’t take the time to learn much about Quest before the merger. Peoplesoft takes over and finds out, JDE had a little independent user group, how quaint. They invite the Quest board out to California to tell them, we won’t be needing your little group anymore, we’re Peoplesoft. (Perhaps with a little less sarcasm, but you get the idea.) The Quest board says that is interesting, we’ll take your message back to the membership and have ourselves a little vote. The membership speaks, and says, “We want to live!!!” Peoplesoft responds, well if you wont go away, here are new guidelines you have to follow. The Quest board reviews the guidelines, which would make the groups existence kind of pointless and responds to Peoplesoft (correctly) “no way, we don’t work for you”. Peoplesoft gets mad and says, fine, we’re going to take our toys (participation, people and money) and go play by ourselves. And here we are…

Quest is currently in the process of reinventing itself to function without the assistance, or even good wishes of its former partner. This will take some time. We should not be too critical in the short term, especially regarding the conferences, as these were heavily subsidized by JD Edwards. The conferences will be different. Quest will not be able to afford a lot of the flash of the conferences in the past. But we need to make sure that the content and value is still there. To ensure this, the Quest membership (not the board of directors) needs to step up and provide more than just their membership fees, they need to participate in the organization. What is participation? Not only attend the conferences, but give presentations, recruit new membership, let the board know what the members need to get value back and then help them achieve those goals.

I also believe that Quest should reach out to the Peoplesoft customers and create a Peoplesoft side of the organization. Perhaps inviting some of these customers to Focus to show them what Quest is all about. I’m sure there are plenty of PS customers who are not entirely happy with how PS handles it’s customer relations…

IMOHO