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Oracle’s Fusion Apps Addresses A Broad Set Of Horizontal Modules

Oracle’s co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Larry Ellison announced the code completion of Fusion Apps in today’s late afternoon keynote.  Though Ellison did not give precise guidance on general availability (GA), he did hint that the product would be available, “sometime in 2010″.  The product currently undergoes extensive testing and will comprise of  key modules including:

• Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management
• Oracle Fusion Enterprise Project Portfolio Management
• Oracle Fusion Governance, Risk, And Compliance
• Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management
• Oracle Fusion Financial Management
• Oracle Fusion Procurement
• Oracle Fusion Supply Chain Management

Some key hallmarks of Oracle’s Fusion Applications V 1. (see Figure 1) include:

• Role based design
• Extensive provision for proactive reporting and alerts
• Web 2.0 like usability
• SOA architecture for integration of legacy applications
• Multiple deployment options including on-premise, hosting, and multi-tenant SaaS

The V1 product will not deliver out of the box capabilities to support:

• Discrete Manufacturing
• Process Manufacturing
• Public Sector

Figure 1. Fusion Apps Move Towards A Social Enterprise/Social Business Apps ^[2] User Experience

(Source: Oracle Corporation )

The Bottom Line – Oracle Takes A Two Prong Strategy And Seeks Domination Of The Apps Market

Oracle’s continues to prove success in its business model.  By acquiring the leading companies with significant recurring revenue streams, it can drive economies of scale to make above average R&D investments.  The result – enough innovation in existing product lines to compel customers to pay maintenance and upgrade; and the time and resources to build a next generation product.  Should Oracle successfully deliver on Fusion Apps to customers in 2010, SAP will have to play catch up in mind share as many sources state that there are no plans for a new product until 2013/2014.  Other vendors will have to leverage or partner for middleware and PaaS options in order to sustain key Web 2.0 innovations in the enterprise.

Your POV.

Is seeing believing? As an Oracle customer will this compel you to stay on Apps Unlimited or make a move to Fusion Apps?  If you aren’t a customer, will you now consider Oracle in your short lists?  Feel free to post your comments here or send me an email at rwang0 at gmail dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org.