Press Release: September 5, 2001

WR Hambrecht + Co Initiates Coverage of PeopleSoft (PSFT) with an Underperform Rating

San Francisco, CA, September 5, 2001—WR Hambrecht + Co today initiated research coverage on PeopleSoft (PSFT) with an Underperform rating. WR Hambrecht’s Enterprise Software analyst Rich Petersen cites a likely slowdown for sales of PeopleSoft’s 8.0 upgrade and macroeconomic conditions as key reasons for the rating. WR Hambrecht + Co offers all its research reports free and real time at www.wrhambrecht.com.

“PeopleSoft has great products, strong management, and large and attractive addressable product markets. However, current consensus estimates for the December 2001 quarter seem too high to us based on what we see to be an unsustainable level of up-selling activity related to the PeopleSoft 8.0 upgrade cycle,” Petersen said.

He continued, “As a result, we think the stock is vulnerable based on a potential downward revision in estimates during or before Q4:01. We would recommend waiting to buy the stock until we get a clearer view of how the company will perform at the end of this year, or until the stock price reflects the scenario we see unfolding in Q4:01.”

WR Hambrecht + Co estimates PeopleSoft to post EPS of $0.56 on revenues of $2.1 billion in fiscal 2001 and $0.77 on $2.2 billion in fiscal 2002. PeopleSoft reported an EPS of $0.30 on $1.7 billion in fiscal 2000.

PeopleSoft, Inc. designs, develops, markets and supports a family of enterprise application software products for use throughout large and medium-sized organizations.