Oracle on target with Fusion

Oracle has underlined the key role that PeopleSoft will play in its next
generation of business applications, and has revealed that it is halfway through
its Fusion scheme to integrate the product suites.

Charles Phillips, Oracle president, said integration was ‘ahead of schedule’
and insisted that a full Fusion Applications suite was on target for a 2008
release.

Fusion has been heralded as a ‘super suite’ of business applications, which
uses the best of products made by Oracle, PeopleSoft and JD Edwards.

During the press conference in San Francisco last week, the company also
confirmed plans to release updated versions of its three leading application
suites this year ­ Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise and JD Edwards
EnterpriseOne.

Each suite will include Fusion components such as integration, business
reporting and workflow tools.

Chairman of the Oracle UK User Group, Ronan Miles, welcomed the news and said
Oracle had proved its critics wrong by sticking to an ‘over-ambitious’
timetable. Phillips said much of the groundwork for the 2008 Fusion applications
had already been achieved.

Oracle also detailed how it was selecting functionality from its various
business suites for inclusion in the 2008 offering. Much of the talk focused on
PeopleSoft, and how some of its development techniques, data distribution
functionality and elements of its user interface would be incorporated.

Ian Charlesworth of analyst Ovum added that the strategy means businesses
will be able to create composite applications, by picking functionality from
anywhere within the portfolio of products.

Miles voiced disappointment that Oracle did not offer more details about its
imminent acquisition of customer relationship management software provider
Siebel. ‘Users are hungry to see [Siebel] come into the fold,’ he said.