PROVOSTS AND VICE-PRESIDENTS of seven of the eight "Big Ten" universities that use PeopleSoft software on their campuses wrote a joint letter to the company last month, complaining about the software and suggesting solutions. [The full text of the letter is available on our Web site.]

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Provosts and vice-presidents of seven of the eight "Big Ten" universities that use PeopleSoft software on their campuses wrote a joint letter to the company last month, complaining that the "performance of the systems, in terms of responsiveness, is simply unacceptable." The three-page, single-spaced letter outlines the institutions' problems with the software program and suggests solutions, but also emphasizes their commitment to the company's products.

Problems described in the letter include issues of software quality as well as of performance. In particular, the letter focuses on the amount of time PeopleSoft programs require to handle large "batch" tasks, such as tuition calculation -- which, for some institutions, took six days. PeopleSoft, which is based in Pleasanton, Cal., says that it has responded to the letter and is arranging to meet personally with the signatories to discuss their concerns. The letter caps a difficult fall for the company, which has been battered by complaints about its student-administration systems from both large and small colleges and universities. The company's chief executive officer, David A. Duffield, offered a public apology for those and other problems at an August conference attended by thousands of PeopleSoft users.

The new letter is signed by the provosts of Northwestern University, the Ohio State University, and the Universities of Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and well as the vice-chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and the vice-president for information technology at Indiana University.

The institutions decided together to purchase the software in July 1997. Now their administrators say they are facing the program's problems together -- and, for the first time, have begun creating "multi-institution working groups" to help solve the problems.

Many of the problems stem from the sheer size of the universities involved, which jointly employ 35,000 faculty members and enroll over half a million students. As a consequence of the institutions' size, "problems with PeopleSoft escalate quickly and dramatically," notes the letter.

Rebecca R. Dixon, associate provost for university enrollment at Northwestern, says that "PeopleSoft was the biggest software installation that Northwestern has ever engaged in."

"It has cut across all aspects of student-administration services, prospective-student administration, financial aid, records and registration, and the billing system," she says. "It is an enormous piece of software, and where we had stand-alone systems previously, we're working for the first time with an integrated system." The financial-aid module of the program is particularly ill-equipped to deal with the customized services that Northwestern provides to its students, she says.

Registration for courses, which Northwestern hoped could be handled over the Web, instead had to be done by asking small groups of students to go to specific locations to enter their class choices, says Ms. Dixon, because the Web component of the application could not handle large numbers of users. Northwestern, which invested roughly $10-million in PeopleSoft, is one of the smallest Big Ten PeopleSoft clients, with approximately 10,000 students, says Ms. Dixon. She adds that apart from the problem with the Web, the registration software was "excellent."

Some officials interviewed were surprised that PeopleSoft did not seem to understand the complexities of 'universities' computing needs. Says Paul N. Courant, associate provost at Michigan: "I do not think there was good mutual understanding between the universities and PeopleSoft about what was going to be required for [the software] to work smoothly."

"To a certain extent, it's frustrating to educate them," he says. Universities are different from large commercial enterprises, he notes -- they are far less centralized and may have far-flung campuses whose research and graduate programs are distinct from undergraduate schools.

He adds, however, that he thinks "both the universities and PeopleSoft are working hard to make it work."

PeopleSoft representatives say they are committed to satisfying their customers. "We received the letter November 30," says Laura King, director of marketing, education, and government at PeopleSoft, adding that the company is trying to schedule a meeting of those who signed the letter. And Steve Swasey, PeopleSoft's public-relations director, who joined the company only three weeks ago, acknowledges that "a few of the implementations have not been as successful as planned."

"But," he adds, "higher education is a real priority for this company."