Oracle users say happy with progress but could do better

Ronan Miles, chairman of UK Oracle user group, believes the company turned the corner after its acquisition of PeopleSoft and JD Edwards two years ago. “That transformed Oracle from a technology company with some applications to an applications supplier whose apps are based on the best technologies,” he says. “Oracle says it’s now got a total of 275,000 customers globally, so it’s not a great leap of faith to say that it now touches over a billion people,” he adds. “And we believe it is living up to the responsibilities that come from that.” For him Oracle’s Applications Unlimited and its change in gear of user support towards the model developed by PeopleSoft are the keys. “People do not resist change,” he says. “They resist being changed. “When Oracle acquired PeopleSoft and then announced Fusion, that was people being changed. Now, with Applications Unlimited and Fusion they’re not being changed. They have the opportunity to change at their own time in their own way. That has dealt with the significant concerns.” His comments are borne out by the survey results, which asked Oracle users to score their supplier on satisfaction levels in advance of the UK OUG 2006 conference earlier this month at Birmingham International Convention Centre. On the PeopleSoft and JD Edwards side, there was a small swing to the negative (4%) for the former and a substantial move to ‘neutral’ (22% for JD Edwards compared to 2005. But Miles doesn’t believe either is symptomatic of real prolems. He explains the PeoleSoft slip as “due to difficulties of getting the service changes in place in line with the Oracle model,” and the JD Edwards as “both the euphoria and cynicism in the users slipping away so they’ve moved to being ambivalent.” Meanwhile scorers for Oracle’s own E-Business suite improved, although those for the manufacturing and e-procurement bundled release were slightly down. Very happy responses dropped from 7.2% to 2.3% on E-Business suite but the happies went up from 58.2% to 69.9%. “It’s just about maturity,” explains Miles. “The customer base is looking for E-Business Suite 12 due in the next 12 months.” And then on the CRM side, two thirds of Siebel users believe their investment in Siebel is very safe in Oracle’s hands. Miles comments: “Most of the customers base their systems on Oracle but the way Siebel allowed you to run on Oracle was restricted: they are now motivated to work the technology and the application together.” Finally, there were minor changes in customer feedback on Oracle’s support offerings, with swings for Metalink towards neutral (18.7% to 27.6% at the expense of positive results), and for Remote Diagnosis, which saw ‘very happy’ responses fall from 9.5% to 3.6%. Says Miles: “Metalink just needs a little buff up, but the human aspect of Oracle support is significantly better.” Interestingly, more than half of those surveyed had not heard of Oracle’s Fusion Applications project – although of those that had, 55% were happy with what they’ve been shown so far, while 68% say they are not considering an upgrade to Fusion. Says Miles: “These results show that, in general, Oracle’s new products – and its ability to support them – continue to strike a positive chord with the user community… “Our main comment to Oracle regarding the changes in attitudes from JD Edwards and PeopleSoft customers is that it’s important to remain focused on the needs of these communities even though the newer acquisitions will demand attention as well. Continuing lessons from PeopleSoft and JD Edwards engagements will make Oracle's life easier for the later acquisitions.”