Seeking to reinforce its commitment to protect the software investments of its current customers, Oracle Corp. today formally unveiled new versions of its five major application product lines, including a significantly upgraded E-Business Suite and the first major enhancement to the IBM System i-based JD Edwards product since 1998.
The upgrades to the five product lines — the Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise, Siebel CRM, JD Edwards World, and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications — include literally thousands of functional changes. The new E-Business Suite 12, for example, consists of 18 new products and 2,443 functional enhancements.
The upgrades, which Oracle had previously indicated it would reveal today, were announced at a customer, press, and analyst event that was broadcast around the world from New York's Hudson Theater. Oracle claimed that 3,000 people attended the live event via the Internet and other means.
In their remarks, Oracle executives presenting at the event, which was dubbed Applications Unlimited, emphasized the company's commitment to provide new releases and "lifetime" support to customers of the five product lines. "A year ago, it was hard to believe that Oracle would support all of these products lines," said Fred Studer, group vice president for industries and applications at the company, referring to perceptions in some customer quarters. "Today is the next step in the Applications Unlimited strategy," said Studer, who served as the master of ceremonies at the event.
Oracle executives also reiterated their commitment to Oracle's next-generation Fusion product strategy, a new platform for the company's applications that is based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Officials said that Oracle is "on track" to deliver the first version of Fusion in 2008. But they also suggested that the company is trying to better balance its messaging on existing product upgrades and the new Fusion product. "If we do an event on Fusion, then people think we're not doing Applications Unlimited," and vice versa, said Senior Vice President John Wookey.
In its product announcement today, Oracle introduced:
- E-Business Suite Release 12: The Global Business Release. Oracle said that newly updated ERP applications in the suite provide a centralized financial architecture "that enables higher levels of control and transparency" for a variety of accounting, tax, and employee regulations and standards. Release 12, previewed at Oracle's OpenWorld conference last fall, is now generally available.
- PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.0: The Extended Value Release. The company said that 9.0, consisting of two new products and 1,478 functional enhancements, includes a new version 9.0 of PeopleSoft's Human Capital Management application as well as enterprise-wide talent management capabilities.
- Siebel CRM 8.0: Transformational CRM. Oracle said this new release, with 10 new products and 366 enhancements, includes industry-specific capabilities, a task-based user interface, and enterprise search functions, among other improvements.
- JD Edwards World A9.1: The Renaissance Release. Positioned as a "preview," Oracle said this new release, the first major upgrade for this System i-based (formerly called the AS/400) application since 1998, has 4 planned new products and 1297 enhancements in such areas as financials, distribution, manufacturing and human capital.
- JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12: The Continued Innovation Release. The company said that this release, to be delivered in the spring, contains 5 new products and 291 enhancements, including a new operational sourcing capability and new modules for the food and beverage industry.
Oracle said that E-Business Suite Release 12, Siebel CRM 8.0, and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12, as well as the Human Capital Management Version 9.0, are available immediately "for traditional deployment" as well as on-demand. JD Edwards World A9.1 is scheduled for availability in both modes later this year.
Integration capabilities were also cited by the Oracle executives as central to their product roadmaps and to Fusion. President Charles Phillips said there are now what he called standard integration capabilities across all ERP suites among the lines, standard integration to industry-specific suites, and "one-step" integration for independent software vendors that may have products that work with Oracle applications. As part of the product announcements today, Oracle said that its Fusion middleware has been certified for the five new versions.
Phillips noted that as part of its development efforts, Oracle organizes itself around industry suites which are supported by dedicated business units within Oracle. There are currently four such industry areas: retail, communications, financial services, and utilities.
Asked at a press conference following the event whether Oracle had plans to establish a similar unit for manufacturing, Wookey said, "There is not an immediate plan for manufacturing." He said the company's current ERP and supply chain organization is addressing needs adequately at this time.
Discussing service-oriented architectures, Wookey said he saw a "change coming in the marketplace" to support SOAs and standards-based middleware. He said that customers are not always ready to embrace these technologies "when we are."
From an industry sector perspective, Wookey said he expected the communications and banking sectors to lead in the adoption of SOAs, which he thought would occur slowly. And, looking at Oracle's five products lines, he said that E-Business Suite users "may move more aggressively."