Oracle Celebrates Half Fusion

By 2008, Oracle will have a fully developed platform, a slate of integrated, standards-based applications and a service-oriented architecture that span the business-intelligence spectrum, all based on Fusion Middleware.

But that's 2008 (or beyond). On the first anniversary of the launch of its Fusion project, Oracle proudly proclaims that it's "halfway" toward its goal of integrating a host of technologies and products acquired from PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and others, and marketing what it calls the only standards-based, modular platform.

At a packed gala event at San Francisco's renaissance-style city hall, Oracle executives went into great detail in a two-and-half-hour series of presentations that highlighted the successes of Fusion's development during the past year and the milestones to come. Already shipping are several development tools and the foundations of the Fusion middleware platform, which are paving the way for standards-based versions of Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Applications. In the coming year, Oracle will publish additional reporting modules that will further enhance Fusion's capabilities.

"We're going to a market-leading platform, and we're going to build the tools to leverage that platform," said John Wookey, Oracle's senior vice president of application development. "ISVs will be able to use the same tools as Oracle."

Oracle executives referenced the importance of its channel partners to the development and marketing of Fusion. ISVs will have better tools and abilities to leverage the Fusion platform. And, because of Fusion's standards-based platform, solution providers will have a greater ability to build better systems with Oracle, PeopleSoft and JD Edwards applications.

Oracle recently announced that it will offer lifetime support for all of its products, which means customers will be able to upgrade when it makes sense for their businesses.

"The way you get 275,000 customers, you don't leave them behind; you bring them along," said Oracle president Charles Phillips.

The company estimates that 80 percent of its customers are "eligible" for upgrading to Fusion. In other words, they're in line to upgrade to current or newly released Oracle products that either have or support Fusion processes.

But this point could be an obstacle, since it's also recommending that Oracle users upgrade to be in a better position to take advantage of Fusion functionality as they become available.

"I like the vision, but how willing are the customers going to be to adopt it?" asked Isabelle Dumont, senior director of product marketing at CollabNet, a developer of on-demand collaboration tools and Oracle partner.

The evolution approach to Fusion's development could be its biggest advantage, said Scott Abbott, Avnet's vice president of technology solutions. Solution providers will be able to use Fusion's standards as a means for integrating applications and developing tools that best suit their customers' needs.

"If we can be clear about the steps and stages, it will make things much easier to follow," Abbott said. And this is particularly important to Oracle's channel partners, since it gives them a roadmap for when applications and feature sets will become available.

Oracle's ultimate goal with Fusion is a platform and application catalog that reduces complexity, is easier to manage and more flexible to adapt to unique business needs, and is more secure.

"We're halfway there, and it's the tough half," Phillips said.