Oracle will ship the next version of its E-Business
Suite of enterprise applications on 8 November.
The software maker officially unveiled E-Business Suite 11i.10
at its OpenWorld conference in London in early September. At the
time Oracle said customers would be able to get their hands on the
delayed software within 60 days.
The product will be available in English, German, French,
Spanish and Italian, said Steve Miranda, Oracle's vice-president of
financials applications development. Other languages will follow
shortly, he added.
Oracle pitched the system integrators on the industry specific
features of 11i.10, which it also discussed at OpenWorld. The
company has said 11i.10 includes at least 2,100 new
capabilities.
The investments to target specific industries will continue,
said Charles Phillips, Oracle's president.
"The next wave of our applications investment will be by
vertical. Some of it will be by acquisitions," Phillips said.
Phillips reiterated that partners are important as Oracle seeks
to grow its applications business.
"The percentage of revenue coming through partners is
increasing... I think it will be over half soon," he said. Oracle
has a strong direct sales force, but is increasingly relying on
partners, especially when it comes to sales to small and
medium-sized businesses.
Oracle has already been releasing 11i.10 in piecemeal fashion,
for example it lauched on 13 August Oracle CRM 11i.10, which
includes updated sales, marketing and partner relationship
management modules.
Aside from a focus on specific industries, E-Business Suite
11i.10 also builds on Oracle's integration story. Oracle is
exposing many interfaces as web services to make it easier and less
costly for companies to automate business processes that span
Oracle and non-Oracle applications.
Joris Evers writes for IDG News Service
