Oracle user group sees trust and a good future in Fusion
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“Oracle has taken on board the responsibility of owning so many packaged ERP applications that drive so much of UK business, and will be a valued and trusted part of UK IT economy.” Brian Tinham reports
“Oracle has taken on board the responsibility of owning so many packaged ERP applications that drive so much of UK business, and will be a valued and trusted part of UK IT economy.”
That’s Ronan Miles’ (chairman of UKOUG and technical architect with BT) take on Oracle’s latest stance in the post PeopleSoft era, as presented by Ian Smith, senor vice president Oracle, at last month’s three-day Oracle User Group meeting, which played host to 2,600 people.
“Oracle now has its Vision 2010 –which is all about trusted partners, respected employers, continual learning and support. It understands that the technology is not enough. Instead, customer success is their success,” says Miles.
As for Oracle’s project Fusion – the upcoming middleware and the future of the JD Edwards, PeopleSoft and Oracle extended ERP suites – he says Oracle’s strategy is convincing. “Oracle says it understands the importance of protecting customers’ existing investment, and will undertake to meet our expectations and offer lifetime support on top.
“My view is that Oracle understands its burden and it’s made good promises about how it will support customers. But above that, Fusion, when it’s successful, will be a fundamental change on how ERP packages are put together for everybody developing business applications. It’s talking about plug-compatible business components in any J2EE compatible system architecture.”
And he adds: “I think we’ll get Darwinian evolution, with standards and ‘plug and play’ plus the safety of purchasing solutions from someone. But the technology promise is moving forward at a rate at which the market hasn’t caught up on. And if Oracle can do it, you can bet that others will be doing it very soon too.”
As for the annual UKOUG 100-question survey, which examines the ‘health of the Oracle nation’, he says satisfaction with the giant is improving considerably among users. “The response this year roughly doubled so you’d expect more people from centre ground to be voting. So the fact that satisfaction doubled is a double improvement.”
