The launch of
Oracle E-Business Suite 12 last month is a
major step towards Oracle's first fully standards-based, service
oriented architecture (SOA) suite,
Fusion Applications, due in
2008.
Fusion Applications is a collection of enterprise resource
planning programs based on Oracle's core database management system
that make extensive use of web services. It is separate from
Oracle's various branded business applications, such as PeopleSoft
Enterprise and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, although they will use a
common applications platform called Oracle Fusion Middleware.
The previous E-Business Suite, version 11i, contains products
such as Oracle Financials, Oracle Logistics, Oracle HR and Oracle
Sales. These are modular and licensed separately, but they use a
common applications stack that includes Oracle Forms Server, Oracle
Reports Server, Apache Web Server, J-initiator and Sun Java
technology.
With every new release of the ERP suite, Oracle has been moving
towards its goal of encoding more individual business processes
that can be embedded into third-party applications, such as
Microsoft Office, with the attendant benefits of tighter
integration, better business process management, lower IT and
management costs and greater business and IT flexibility.
Oracle E-Business Suite 12 is certified to run on Oracle Fusion
Middleware, which has the ability to manage processes that span
heterogeneous applications. A key part of this architecture is the
ability to utilise hundreds of predefined web services, integrating
them with third-party applications.
David Mitchell, global head of software at analyst firm Ovum,
said Oracle was on track to deliver its Fusion technology on time,
and it had so far met all of its targets.
"Fusion is much more component-based than previous versions of
the software, and you can embed parts of the applications into
Outlook or Office, for example, in much more flexible ways," he
said.
Meanwhile, rival ERP supplier SAP has teamed up with Microsoft
to deliver a similar initiative, which has borne fruit initially
with Duet, a series of pre-packaged SAP business processes that are
embedded into Microsoft Office applications.
Mitchell said Duet offers integration around a more limited
range of functions than Oracle plans to offer. But he said the same
architectural flexibility was available in SAP's Netweaver SOA
platform, which would eventually offer a good alternative to Oracle
Fusion.
The major challenges for organisations moving from traditional
ERP to an SOA-based system are of a business rather than a
technical nature, said Mitchell. "The older ERP packages are
essentially monolithic. Fusion is much more modular," he said.
This means that organisations need a clear view of which
business processes they want to automate and how they want to
integrate them into their front-end applications, and then get the
expertise to do so.
As yet, Oracle has offered few details about the upgrade process
to version 12 of its E-Business Suite, but, for many users, it
would be worth doing, said Mitchell.
"Oracle has put a lot of effort into the new financial
architecture of the products in terms of ledger sets," he said.
"So, if you use shared services, or have different compliance
regimes, or any complex requirements on financial reporting, this
is worth moving to within a six- to nine-month timeframe.
"Equally, there are new facilities in version 12 with the
introduction of Fusion Middleware that help to address cost of
ownership, which will also help you to move along the Fusion
road."
As Oracle builds towards its Fusion goals, it still has a
responsibility to support its existing platforms. It is doing this
under the banner of Applications Unlimited.
While promoting the Fusion-enabled version of Oracle
E-Business, the supplier also released major product updates with
Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.0, Siebel CRM 8.0, JD
Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12 and JD Edwards World A9.1.
"These releases are proof that Oracle is protecting and
extending customers' current investments in Oracle's leading
horizontal, specialty and industry suites," said Oracle president
Charles Phillips. "Additionally, with the Applications Unlimited
programme, we are giving our customers the choice as to when they
upgrade without having to re-license their applications."
Neil Macehiter, principal analyst at Macehiter Ward-Dutton,
said, "In the Applications Unlimited launch Oracle is treading a
very careful line between promotion of the Fusion vision and
continuing development of E-Business Suite, Siebel, Peoplesoft and
JD Edwards products to manage the potential concerns of existing
users regarding the protection of their significant investment in
these products.
"I was surprised that Phillips majored on Fusion Middleware as
the enabler of Fusion - the strategy seems to be to get customers
and software suppliers to buy into Fusion Middleware as the
platform to ease the transition to Fusion."
Given these facts, Macehiter said it was difficult to see how
close Fusion is to reality at the moment. Only time will tell.
New features in Oracle E-Business Suite 12
● Based on the Oracle Fusion Middleware platform, Release 12
includes hundreds of predefined web services
● Centralised financial architecture enables higher levels of
control and transparency
● Centralised set-up and maintenance of accounting, tax and
banking rules
● Oracle Profitability Manager enables users to perform a wide
range of profitability analysis and reporting
● Oracle Human Capital Management includes specific role-based
views into data
● Oracle Project Portfolio Analysis helps users select projects
that are dispersed across geographies or lines of business and
align them to global business objectives.
Oracle ships
flagship ERP system
Oracle embeds BI
tools in Fusion
More information:
www.oracle.com/applications/e-business-suite-release.html
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