Managing Automation - February 2009 - (Page 36) The Evolutionary Options W hile Oracle’s path to next-generation, services-oriented composition environment that will support customers that need to create architecture (SOA)-based applications is an entirely new software that supports unique processes. Based on a different implemenproduct — Fusion Applications — two of its major entertation of NetWeaver — version 7.1 — this composition environment will prise software rivals, SAP AG and Infor, are taking a rely heavily on SAP’s Galaxy business process management more evolutionary approach. platform, which SAP began shipping in December 2008. “What Oracle is trying to do with Fusion Applications Both the ERP 6.0/NetWeaver 7.0 and the NetWeaver 7.1 is like trying to put GM, Ford, and Chrysler together and composition environment can be managed from SAP’s make it work,” says Philip Say, SAP’s vice president for Solution Manager platform. solution marketing. “It’s very tough.” “Our philosophy is no more major infrastructure Particularly in today’s precarious economic environupgrades,” Say says. ment, Say says, manufacturers are inclined toward caution. Infor, like Oracle, has grown its enterprise applications “They want risk in terms of their technology investments business through acquisition, but Infor’s strategy for modtaken out of the equation,” he says. ernizing its applications is, like SAP’s, based on evolution. SAP’s answer has been to SOA-enable its existing “Our customers don’t want to have to drop their enterprise applications, introduce a non-disruptive softexisting solutions or rip and replace what they have,” ware enhancement protocol, and, at the same time, add says Jeremy Suratt, director of technology marketing at a parallel services-based platform that will allow cusInfor. “That’s too disruptive to them, and, with the econPhilip Say tomers to easily compose and implement software that omy the way it is, they don’t have the resources to devote supports their unique processes. For several years, SAP has been reto rip-and-replace.” architecting its core ERP product — now called SAP ERP 6.0 — on top Instead, Infor is retrofitting its applications with an SOA-enabled of NetWeaver, SAP’s SOA platform. foundation, called Open SOA. That platform will allow Infor applica“Essentially SAP has jacked up the house and put a new foundation under tions, such as ERP LN and Syteline, to make new software extensions it that allows customers to modernize in implementable steps,” says Bob using interoperability standards developed by the Open Applications Parker, group vice president at IDC Manufacturing Insights. “So customers Group. Open SOA also includes a lightweight messaging and rules platdon’t have to buy a monolithic new thing to get new functionality.” form that allows existing applications and new components to exchange That new SOA-enabled foundation allows SAP to gradually provide transactions and documents. enhancements to the core application suite that can be absorbed quickly Infor has already started rolling out new components that users of and easily by customers — at least those that have upgraded to ERP 6.0 Open SOA-enabled applications will be able to plug into. One compoand NetWeaver 7.0. These Enhancement Packs provide a steady stream nent, unveiled at last year’s Inforum customer conference, is an of upgrades that can be adopted with minimal quality assurance and Inventory Control module that supports inventory visibility across multesting. SAP’s latest Enhancement Pack 4, for example, adds new order tiple systems. visibility functionality for manufacturers outsourcing production. Each of Infor’s existing products has a roadmap calling for it to support Parallel to the ERP 6.0/NetWeaver stack, SAP is building an SOA-based Open SOA and the new components between now and 2011, Suratt says. Soon thereafter, however, something changed. Ellison, Phillips, and other Oracle officials, while continuing to insist that the Fusion Applications plan was still in place, stopped talking about specific availability dates. Wookey left Oracle, later to surface at SAP. And the 2008 deadline for releasing a full suite of Fusion Applications came and went without so much as a public peep from Oracle headquarters in Redwood Shores, CA. (Oracle declined requests for inter views about Fusion Applications for this article.) Analysts who have been briefed on Fusion Applications now expect that a relatively complete suite won’t appear until late 2009 or early 2010 and that the much touted product won’t significantly impact the enterprise applications market until well into 2010, more than five years after Oracle unveiled the initiative. And, say customers who have seen demonstrations of Fusion Applications, the initial release won’t include a new core manufacturing module. “It’s quite evident that Fusion will be quite late, which is not that surprising,” says Bob Parker, group vice president at IDC Manufacturing Insights. “Three years ago, when they started laying out their plans, we said there was no way they would finish on time.” The delay has complicated life for many of Oracle’s customers, which must decide whether to upgrade to the latest versions of their existing products, such as Oracle’s E-Business Suite 12, or wait for Fusion Applications. The delay has also given Oracle competitors a chance to paint Fusion Applications as a risky, unproven option for customers, many of which are becoming increasingly risk-averse in the worldwide economic slowdown (see sidebar, this page). However, even with Fusion Applications missing in action until a date uncertain, the outlook for Oracle’s applications business is not at all bad. Many customers say they are still very interested in migrating to Fusion Applications when it arrives. Analysts ma February 36 2009 Photo courtesy: SAP
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