Claiming to be "half way to Fusion," Oracle claimed that it is on schedule for a 2008 unveiling of its forthcoming Fusion suite of enterprise applications.
"We are ahead of schedule mostly because we are dealing with processes that we already understand. The applications in our portfolio are already the leading applications in the industries that they compete in," Oracle co-president Charles Philips told a gathering of partners and customers in San Francisco.
Fusion is Oracle's forthcoming enterprise business suite that is set to replace the existing suites for Oracle, JD Edwards, Peoplesoft and Siebel Systems. The project was first unveiled in January 2005.
The suite aims to deliver a single set of code and a superset of the functionalities from Ebusiness Suite the applications that Oracle has acquired over the past years. Moving to a single suite will allow the software vendor to bundle its development resources and spread out investment costs over a large group of customers.
Fusion defines the actual applications as well as the middleware and the overall architecture,
While the final product is slated for a 2008 release, segments will be delivered piecemeal in the period prior to that. The first parts are actually already finished, boasted Thomas Kurian, senior vice president for Fusion middleware architecture: "From a technology point of view, the biggest part of enabling the Fusion applications was already done in the year 2005."
The Fusion Middleware suite will enable customers to use some of the more advanced features, including server grids and service oriented architectures (SOAs). Those in turn are set to improve business intelligence and provide better insight into business processes.
Oracle downplayed the complexity and efforts needed for developing an entire new suite of applications while trumpeting the need for a new architecture based on industry standards.
Oracle's main rival SAP in the past has commented that rewriting the application suite is needlessly complicated and can't be done within the allotted three-year timeframe.
Oracle's senior vice president for Applications John Wookey however countered that rewriting the applications is necessary to get the required level of security, scalability, performance and business agility.
"We are not hesitating at all in saying that we are rewriting large portions of our applications. That's the only way to provide the agility to our customers in running their applications," Wookey claimed.
While the presentation aimed to assure users and overall enterprise software community that the enterprise software suite is progressing as planned, industry analyst Joshua Greenbaum with Enterprise Applications Consulting wasn't impressed. "What's important isn't the technology but the applications. I don't think it's far enough along for them to declare victory by a long shot," Greenbaum told vnunet.com.
Being one year into the three year development project, the company has only shown middleware but very little of the actual applications, Greenbaum argued. For customers to be reassured that Fusion is a the right platform, Oracle needs to show more functionalities for specific vertical markets and new applications.
"We are ahead of schedule mostly because we are dealing with processes that we already understand. The applications in our portfolio are already the leading applications in the industries that they compete in," Oracle co-president Charles Philips told a gathering of partners and customers in San Francisco.
Fusion is Oracle's forthcoming enterprise business suite that is set to replace the existing suites for Oracle, JD Edwards, Peoplesoft and Siebel Systems. The project was first unveiled in January 2005.
The suite aims to deliver a single set of code and a superset of the functionalities from Ebusiness Suite the applications that Oracle has acquired over the past years. Moving to a single suite will allow the software vendor to bundle its development resources and spread out investment costs over a large group of customers.
Fusion defines the actual applications as well as the middleware and the overall architecture,
While the final product is slated for a 2008 release, segments will be delivered piecemeal in the period prior to that. The first parts are actually already finished, boasted Thomas Kurian, senior vice president for Fusion middleware architecture: "From a technology point of view, the biggest part of enabling the Fusion applications was already done in the year 2005."
The Fusion Middleware suite will enable customers to use some of the more advanced features, including server grids and service oriented architectures (SOAs). Those in turn are set to improve business intelligence and provide better insight into business processes.
Oracle downplayed the complexity and efforts needed for developing an entire new suite of applications while trumpeting the need for a new architecture based on industry standards.
Oracle's main rival SAP in the past has commented that rewriting the application suite is needlessly complicated and can't be done within the allotted three-year timeframe.
Oracle's senior vice president for Applications John Wookey however countered that rewriting the applications is necessary to get the required level of security, scalability, performance and business agility.
"We are not hesitating at all in saying that we are rewriting large portions of our applications. That's the only way to provide the agility to our customers in running their applications," Wookey claimed.
While the presentation aimed to assure users and overall enterprise software community that the enterprise software suite is progressing as planned, industry analyst Joshua Greenbaum with Enterprise Applications Consulting wasn't impressed. "What's important isn't the technology but the applications. I don't think it's far enough along for them to declare victory by a long shot," Greenbaum told vnunet.com.
Being one year into the three year development project, the company has only shown middleware but very little of the actual applications, Greenbaum argued. For customers to be reassured that Fusion is a the right platform, Oracle needs to show more functionalities for specific vertical markets and new applications.