Oracle is large enough to deliver on its promise to support and continue developing its acquired product lines at the same time as its next-generation fusion applications, says Andrew Sutherland, Oracle technology VP for Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Sutherland was responding to questions yesterday after Gartner research director Johan Jacobs told attendees of the SA Oracle Users` Group conference, at Sun City, that such parallel development would cause Oracle to "split at its seams" and targets were "unrealistic".
"We have every confidence we will meet our development and support promises for the main product lines Oracle has gained through acquisitions because of the large number of developers we have to make software development faster," said Sutherland.
According to Sutherland, with its profits and margins higher than ever, Oracle is probably one of the best-positioned companies to attempt such an undertaking, with current investments in research and development at more that $2 billion a year.
"Critics also tend to overlook the fact that software development tools have made the process increasingly faster. It is likely that we will surpass estimates of how quickly we can create a new set of applications," he said.
Migration challenges
Reacting to another statement by Jacobs, that Gartner believed migration to fusion applications would not be easy for many customers, Oracle SA`s applications consulting manager Attie Taljaard said although some work would be involved, tools and processes were in place to make the transition as easy as possible.
Taljaard also agreed with Gartner that many companies would probably have to adapt business processes and upskill staff, but said that was a standard part of any significant software upgrade and would not be unique to the migration to fusion applications.
Although critical of some aspects of Oracle`s plans for its next generation of software, and expressing reservations about its ability to deliver on its promises, Jacobs said Gartner considered the plan to combine the best in class functionality of existing and acquired products to be a well thought out solution.
"A well integrated product set is likely to deliver greater value than a group of standalone products," he said.
Continued acquisition
Defending Oracle`s acquisition of JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, Siebel and over 20 other smaller companies in the past two years, Oracle VP for EMEA Sergio Giacoletto told conference attendees the process was a natural consequence of consolidation in the software industry.
"As the cost of playing in a global market increases and organisations seek to reduce the number of vendors they deal with and reduce integration problems, the software industry continues to consolidate around four main players: Oracle, IBM, SAP and Microsoft," he said.
Indicating Oracle was likely to continue on the acquisition trail, Giacoletto explained the process was necessary to developing a complete software stack based on open standards, which was key to Oracle`s strategy in what he called the "software wars".
"We want to ensure Oracle can compete on each component of the stack by offering the best in class applications either by building or buying them," he explained.
Giacoletto also sought to dispel some of the confusion that he conceded had arisen in the market around Oracle`s use of the word "fusion".
He explained that the term was used in three different ways: "Fusion is the new brand name for our middleware product formerly known as 'application server`, but it is also the name of the service-oriented framework we are using to build our next generation of fusion applications."
Giacoletto said it was therefore common for Oracle to refer to its "fusion middleware", "fusion architecture" and "fusion applications".
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