Managing Automation - February 2009 - (Page 38) [SPECIAL REPORT] gram under Senior VP and middleware chief Thomas Kurian following Wookey’s departure last year was widely seen as an attempt to better coordinate next-generation middleware and applications development. Now, say analysts and customers routinely briefed by Oracle on Fusion Applications, the key message from Oracle is that the company is more interested in the quality of Fusion Applications than in meeting a deadline. “They’re emphasizing the quality of the release over the schedule,” says Floyd Teter, an IT project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and chairman of the Oracle Applications User Group’s Fusion Council, a group that receives Fusion Applications updates from Oracle regularly. Now, experts say, rather than positioning Fusion Applications as its applications crown jewel and the logical destination for most customers, Oracle is telling users that Fusion Applications is just one of three equally viable paths for customers. In addition to migrating to Fusion Applications, other paths are to: — Continue to run existing enterprise applications such as EBS, PeopleSoft, Siebel, and JD Edwards under the Applications Unlimited program. Oracle has committed to continue to fund dedicated development teams for each core applications suite, and analysts expect ongoing enhancements for each product line, including adoption by each of additional Fusion Middleware components. — Stay on existing applications and extend them using Oracle’s Application Integration Architecture (AIA). Introduced in spring 2007, AIA is a set of packaged, services-enabled business semantics and a programming model that enables integration between Oracle and non-Oracle applications. The integration packs enable end-toend process integration. One integration pack, for example, supports order-to-cash processes by tying together Siebel and EBS suites. So far, sources say, few Oracle customers or partners have signed onto AIA. Still, customers could use the AIA strategy to extend the useful life of legacy enterprise applications. Although Oracle has provided applications customers with abundant alternatives to its next-generation suite, Fusion Applications retains strategic importance to the company for a couple of reasons, experts say. First, Fusion Applications will be key to Oracle’s hopes of attracting new applications customers in emerging markets such as financial ser vices, telecommunications, and retail. February And, second, Fusion Applications represents an opportunity for Oracle to demonstrate the value of building a next-generation application suite on top of its middleware stack. “A key part of the message is the inherent value of an integrated stack,” Shepherd says. “It’s embarrassing for them to have a huge applications portfolio, with many products that aren’t built on their stack.” WORTH THE WAIT? Despite all the changes in the circumstances surrounding Fusion Applications, the basic outline and scope of the initiative don’t appear to have changed much. Fusion Applications, analysts and customers say, is still positioned as a complete, integrated, SOAenabled suite. The initial release is expected to cover common, horizontal processes and is not expected to include a lot of vertical, industry-specific functionality. Oracle officials have told JPL’s Teter, for example, not to expect a core manufacturing module in the initial release of Fusion Applications. What is expected to be included are core financials (general ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable, fixed assets, etc.) as well as human capital management, customer relationship management, procurement, government/regulatory compliance, and some supply chain management functionality. While Fusion Applications’ financials and basic data model are expected to borrow heavily from Oracle’s EBS suite, much HCM functionality will come from PeopleSoft. The suite is also expected to incorporate from PeopleSoft the notion of trees, used to organize data elements and place values in Fusion Applications CRM will incorporate Web 2.0 communication techniques, such as chat. — Oracle’s Steve Miranda relationship to one another. And Fusion Applications will be model-based and servicesoriented, meaning customers will be able to use Oracle middleware tools, such as the BPEL Process Manager, to quickly customize business processes. Those who have seen early demonstrations of Fusion Applications say a couple of features stand out: the user interface, which takes advantage of lots of Web 2.0 capabilities, and integrated business intelligence. A good example of the Fusion Applications user inter face can be found in the ma 38 2009 Photo courtesy: Oracle
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