That suggests more confidence in Conway than in Ellison. It also gives Conway farther to fall if he loses. Conway says optimism is justified because of PeopleSoft 8. The products, which went on sale in September, let a customer peer into a supplier's inventory using just a Web browser or let a manager dashing through the airport log on to a Web kiosk to approve a critical purchase. Conway admits that Oracle got a head start in touting the magic of the Internet in business software.
Users really believe in the software.
Conway is not counting on the cult effect alone. He pushed marketing expenses to 10 percent of sales. In years past, the company spent less than 4 percent, relying on word of mouth, which founder Duffield cultivated with hard work and charm. PeopleSoft had a jump on competitors almost from day one, mostly because Duffield had been immersed in similar software for years. As an engineer at IBM, he had designed programs for mainframe computers that helped universities schedule final exams.