There is an old saying: Respect and Suspect.
When someone declares, writes or says something, do not decry or ignore him – respect him. It may turn out that the information he provides is valuable or useful.
On the other hand, Suspect and check whether what was manifested is true, half true or false.
This attitude is the corn stone of Scientific Research.
I am not a Scientist, but during few decades in IT, I found Respect and Suspect as very useful approach as well as in my hobby playing Bridge (respect and suspect your opponents bids and play).
The old saying came to my mind, while reading good news: Oracle Fusion Applications was released for use by Early Adopters after five years of development.
The article was published by Mark Fontecchio in PeopleSoft Planet site.
The following bullets summarize the article:
1. Oracle Fusion Applications is ready but are the customers ready for using it?
2. Potential users
Those who are satisfied with their investment in existing Oracle applications such as E-Business Suite and PeopleSoft – No near-term interest in moving to Fusion Applications
Those who adopt certain modules of Fusion Applications that live alongside their existing Oracle applications –
Co-existence mode. According to Oracle's Senior Vice President Steve Miranda, this has been and will be the most popular adoption approach.
Those opting for full-blown Fusion Applications adoption - this approach would most likely be undertaken by customers who were new to Oracle applications.
3. Concerns of Oracle Applications, PeopleSoft Applications and J.D Edwards applications customers about how long these applications Roadmaps will be supported.
According to the article these concerns are valid but customers need not worry.
5. Fusion Applications require Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition and Fusion Middleware.
My Take
Fusion Applications Availability is good news
Older versions of ERP products and other Applications products value is Operational value.
Their limitations are in Flexibility and Agility.
Oracle's Fusion Project, as well as similar SAP efforts, is in the right direction of creating new Agile, Service Based and more standard Applications.
Oracle Fusion Applications is ready but are the customers ready for using it?
Are Oracle Fusion Applications ready?
Apply the Respect and Suspect principle.
After so many years of Software Products Vendor's unfulfilled promises, I suspect that Oracle could be less ready than its vice-president declares.
If you are a customer or Potential customer check it.
ERP Customers Concerns are more than valid and they should worry
For the Long Term Oracle's customers will have no choice other than migrating to Fusion Applications.
The migration may be smooth or not so smooth, but anyway it will be costly migration.
Actually, they have a choice to use other vendor Applications.
I do not recommend this alternative to satisfied Oracle customers.
It is a risky and very costly option for unsatisfied Oracle customers.
Read the next paragraph of this post in order to understand some, but not all, the issues facing companies who will chose a third alternative: Hybrid Oracle and other Applications vendor (e.g. SAP) applications.
Fusion Applications require Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition and Fusion Middleware
It is Applistructure, similar to SAP's Netweaver. Applications users will be Locked In Oracle's Middleware, BI tools and Application Development (AD) tools (The article does not mention AD tools) and probably Oracle Database in the future.
The implications of dependence upon Oracle's infrastructure products vary:
Oracle Applications users already use Oracle's infrastructure, so they do not have to worry about Vendor Lock In.
PeopleSoft Application users:
My knowledge is limited to the only product marketed in my country: PeopleSoft CRM, but the conclusions could be probably generalized to other PeopleSoft Applications.
The proprietary People Tools AD tools should be replaced by Oracle's AD tools.
Prior to Peoplesoft's acquisition by Oracle its CRM customers could chose between three Middleware platforms: BEA, IBM and Microsoft.
BEA Middleware was used more than the other two.
BEA Middleware users are lucky. Oracle acquired BEA and most of Fusion Middleware components are BEA's Middleware components.
Peoplesoft's users who chose IBM's Middleware or Microsoft's Middleware are less lucky: sooner or later they will have to migrate to Fusion Middleware.
J.D Edwards Applications users are even less lucky: usually they use IBM's infrastructure.
A Gartner Report estimates that the last major release of Seibel CRM could be as late as 2013.
Seibel CRM users should not wait. They should plan their future CRM infrastructure.
They have more concerns than ERP users.
They should use three basic criteria in order to decide which CRM product to use.
Satisfaction – Satisfied Siebel users should use Fusion CRM if it is not too different from Siebel. If it is very different they should select Fusion CRM or competitive product.
Unsatisfied Siebel users (For example see a comment to my post on Unica), should do the opposite:
Fusion Middleware should be included in the selection process, if and only if, they will find it very different from current Siebel offering.
Difference between Fusion CRM and Siebel - This criterion was discussed together with the Satisfaction criterion.
CRM as a SaaS vs. CRM in Data Center – The products list to select from will depend upon this dimension.
Planning for CRM as a Service – your Short List could include SalesForce.com, NetSuite and optionally Oracle Fusion CRM, as well as other products.
Planning for implementing CRM in your Data Center – SAP CRM (especially if you are SAP ERP user) and Oracle Fusion CRM will probably be included in your Short List together with other non-SaaS CRM products.
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