Oracle Fusion Applications are Coming! Shhhh!

Posted by on May 3, 2010 under ERP Software, Government Software, Non-Profit Software | 2 Comments to Read

We are currently working with a client that is considering PeopleSoft – one of the ERP applications that Oracle acquired a few years ago. The PeopleSoft product looks like a possible fit, but it was interesting to note that the salespeople did not talk much about the new Oracle Fusion product and the fact that this new ERP software is less than 1-2 years away from release.

I thought this was very interesting. One would think that a brand new ERP software product from one of the largest ERP software vendors in the world would be promoted heavily. But Oracle is almost completely silent about the development of this product even though they have to be spending many millions of dollars in R&D for this product right now.

Why isn’t Larry Ellison shouting from the tops of the trees that Oracle Fusion applications are coming? Because they are trying to protect the current sales of the e-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards ERP solutions.

Right after the acquisition of PeopleSoft/JD Edwards, Oracle began talking up the idea of their new Super ERP product “Fusion” that would Fuse all of the best functionality from the 3 ERP products Oracle owns. They were also going to put functionality from other acquisitions such as Siebel and Hyperion into the new solution. It would be web based and facilitate Software as a Service (SaaS) as well as on-premise deployments.

Competitors began seeing this as an opportunity to create uncertainty about Oracle’s current ERP solutions. They asked “Why would you buy e-Business suite when it will be replaced within the next couple of years?” This hurt current sales and revenues, while the Fusion application was still years away from being released. So, they dropped the marketing for the new Fusion ERP Applications product.

In fact, if you go to Oracle’s website there is just a 1-page overview that Oracle’s Fusion applications are under development. Interestingly, the first thing you see is how Oracle will support all of the current products with Lifetime Application Support. Again you can see their concern that the announcement of future Fusion applications will hurt sales of their current products.

Now I do not doubt that when Fusion comes out, Oracle will continue to support companies on e-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards for a long time. All of them have significant numbers of installations and they receive billions in annual maintenance revenues from these companies. However, when Fusion is released, the focus for new sales will be the Fusion product. This means that the sales goal within Oracle will be to upgrade all of these companies to the new product eventually. Which will be a huge revenue stream for Oracle.

That is why you will hear almost nothing about Fusion until it is released. Just know that if you currently own an Oracle product, or are looking to purchase one, that you will eventually be encouraged to upgrade to Fusion Applications. Make sure that if you are considering an Oracle product, that an upgrade to Fusion is included in your contract.

Sungard Business PLUS

Posted by on March 26, 2010 under ERP Software, Government Software, Non-Profit Software | Be the First to Comment

SunGard is a unique software vendor with its roots actually in the oil business – in the early 1980’s, SunGard spun-off from the Sun Oil Company. Their growth as a software company has primarily been through acquisition – concentrating on 3 software target verticals: Financials, Higher Education and Public Sector.

Recently, SoftResources participated in scripted demonstrations of SunGard’s new flagship product for the Public Sector – BusinessPLUS. BusinessPLUS is the result of an effort by SunGard to integrate its Public Sector software acquisitions into a single, web-based Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) product. The products included in this integration were: BiTech, Pentamation, HTE, Open Software Solutions, Inc. and Vivista Holdings Limited out of the UK. What about IFAS? IFAS was actually the new name of the BiTech product and used as the basis for the new BusinessPLUS major release approximately 18 months ago. (Software vendor’s like to re-name and re-brand their products so it is important to truly understand the genealogy of the software you are considering!)

BusinessPLUS was considered a “major release” because .NET code was used to bring together several applications with different underlying source code (C++, C#, COBAL, etc.) to create a unified look and feel of the system. .NET technologies allow SunGard to have a web-based product without completely rewriting the source code to these systems. It should be noted that SunGard has some pieces of the “classic” system in their solution that have not been written in the .NET technology. For example, if a payroll clerk is doing head’s down multiple timecard entry, the “classic” timecard screen is best suited for that purpose at this point. However, the parts of the system that have not been enhanced with .NET are likely to be updated over time.

SunGard’s roadmap includes a commitment to develop and enhance BusinessPLUS as their flagship product, In fact, they will no longer sell the older products like Pentamation or HTE and will only support 2 prior versions of the software. This means that customers on the older software solutions will either need to go off maintenance and support their own software internally, or they will eventually move to the BusinessPLUS system. They have formed specific professional services groups for sub-sets of the Public Sector such as municipalities, non-profits and K-12 school districts. SunGard believes this focus will allow current and potential customer’s access to industry experts in their respective fields who understand how the software should work for their vertical market.

SunGard is showing some momentum. They estimate that 30 – 40 customers have either upgraded or purchased BusinessPLUS since its release in November 2008. If you are going through a software evaluation in the public sector, you should definitely consider BusinessPLUS on your list of ERP software solutions.