11i Users - Let's Mix It Up For A CU3 Patch!

I read an interesting post on Steven Chan's blog today about Consolidated Update patching versus Family Pack patching. Steven's basic premise is that, when given the choice, you're better off to apply a much larger Cosolidated Update patch than piecemealing your way through a series of smaller Family Packs. His logic is very sound and, frankly, I think he's right on the money. I won't rehash his entire article here, as you can follow the link and read it for yourself - it's worth reading just for the comparison of the differences between Consolidated Updates and Family Packs.

The really interesting part of the discussion Steven kicked off is in the comments to his post. While many of us agree that Consolidated Updates are better than Family Packs, those of us who have applied CU2 to 11.5.10 are stuck with subsequent Family Packs as our only option. CU2 is well over two years old. Many issues have popped up since the release of CU2, and many of those issue are resolved through Family Packs (or, in some cases, Mini-Packs) released since CU2. Unfortunately, the only option for obtaining post-CU2 fixes is through Family Packs (or Mini-Packs). There is no CU3. In fact, in his executive Q&A at OpenWorld 2007, Cliff Godwin noted that there are currently no plans for creating a new 11.5.10.CU3 release. Nevertheless, many 11.5.10 customers see the need for a CU3. Some of us have stated the need in the comments to Steven's article.

In responding to the comments about a need for a CU3, Steven made a comment that got my mental gears turning:

You should know that a collective customer request carries more weight than individual ones. One possible avenue for ensuring that your voices are combined in chorus would be to work with OAUG on polling the membership on this issue. I would be curious to see what weight a petition would carry.

As I considered Steven's statement, my thoughts turned to Oracle Mix. An EBS group has already been established. We can submit ideas and see how many folks will support those ideas. So why not submit a proposal (essentially a virtual petition) for a CU3 via Oracle Mix and see how many customers want it? This goes right to the purpose for the creation of Oracle Mix. So, I kicked the idea around and finally did it - there's now an idea for the creation of a CU3 patch for 11.5.10 EBS customers on Oracle Mix.

If you are an Oracle EBS customer and want to see a CU3 patch for 11.5.10, please follow the link to the proposal on Oracle Mix and vote for it (click the big button that states how many people want it). In order to vote, you'll need to log in - registration requires an email address from a valid Oracle customer. Let's use Web 2.0 to get a CU3 patch - get yourself in the Mix!

UPDATE #1: As of noon (PST) on Monday, December 3, we have 15 votes for a CU3 patch on Oracle Mix. It's a good start, but we need more (by a few orders of magnitude) in order to get Oracle's attention. If you want a CU3 patch for 11i, get over to Oracle Mix and make your voice heard!

UPDATE #2: As of 3:30 (PST) on Wednesday, December 5, we have 20 votes for the CU3 patch on Oracle Mix. Thanks to those of you who have signed up and voted. For those who have not, please consider doing so - your voice will really make a difference.

Our Iceberg Is Melting

I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong. This is not another plug for "Unbreakable Linux". Read on...

Lately, I've been rereading one of my favorite books on change: Our Iceberg Is Melting by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber. The book shares a fable in which a colony of penguins discovers that their Antarctic iceberg is melting. If the penguins do nothing, the iceberg will shortly melt away and dump the penguins into cold, dark waters of the Antarctic Ocean, which will eventually lead to their deaths from cold and exhaustion. The manner in which the penguins deal with this change holds some great lessons for all of us.

In the normal flow of my work yesterday (Nov. 29th), with the book fresh in my mind, I had the opportunity to speak with five different Oracle E-Business customers about one thing or another. In the course of these dialogues, I discovered that all five were on version 11.5.9 or earlier. In addition, all were uncertain about where to go from their current EBS version. So I thought that right now, when many customers are focused on building their plans for 2008, might be a good time to reiterate an important message as loudly and clearly as possible: your EBS iceberg is melting!

Oracle's Lifetime Support Policy defines the three available levels for Oracle Support. Let me summarize those definitions here:

Premier Support includes:

• Major product and technology releases
• Technical support
• Updates, fixes, security alerts, data fixes, and critical patch updates
• Tax, legal, and regulatory updates
• Upgrade scripts
• Certification with most new third-party products/versions
• Certification with most new Oracle products

Extended Support includes:

• Major product and technology releases
• Technical support
• Updates, fixes, security alerts, data fixes, and critical patch updates
• Tax, legal, and regulatory updates
• Upgrade scripts
• Certification with most existing third-party products/versions
• Certification with most existing Oracle products
• Note that Extended Support may not include certification with some new third-party products/versions.

Sustaining Support includes:

• Major product and technology releases
• Technical support
• Access to OracleMetaLink/PeopleSoft Customer Connection/Siebel SupportWeb
• Fixes, updates, and critical patch updates created during the Premier Support stage
• Upgrade scripts created during the Premier Support stage

Sustaining Support does not include:

• New updates, fixes, security alerts, data fixes, and critical patch updates
• New tax, legal, and regulatory updates
• New upgrade scripts
• Certification with new third-party products/versions
• Certification with new Oracle products
  

So, in terms of the melting iceberg analogy, Sustaining Support looks like the freezing and dark waters of the Antarctic Ocean to me – it’s not a place I desire to visit for any length of time. So, with that in mind, let’s look at some likely scenarios for EBS customers:

• If you are an EBS Release 12 user, stop reading right here. Go see your boss and talk about the big bullet you’ve dodged by being one of the first R12 customers. Have a congratulatory donut, get back to work, then come back to this article in about three years…that’s about the time we’ll start to discuss the future changes in your EBS support levels.
  

• Premier Support for EBS 11.5.10 customers expires in November 2009. These customers will be have one of four options: 1) purchase up to three years of Extended Support, 2) migrate from EBS to another Oracle or non-Oracle apps product line (a very expensive proposition), 3) upgrade to EBS Release 12, or 4) go directly to Sustaining Support.
  

• If you are on 11.5.9, Premier Support expires in June 2008. No Extended Support is available for purchase, so 11.5.9 users are left with options 2 through 4 from above.
  

• If you are using 11.5.8, your Premier Support expires...now! Premier Support for 11.5.8 expires November 30, 2007. Let's see: 30 days hath September, April, June and November...I'm writing this on the last day of November...yup, your Premier Support ends today! Purchasing Extended Support is not an option. Unless you've already acted on options 2 or 3 from above, you'll go directly to Sustain Support at the stroke of midnight tonight (something about a pumpkin and a slipper come to mind here, but I’ve already pushed my limit on cute stories in this article, don’t you think?).
  

• If you are currently on a version prior to 11.5.8, your iceberg has done melted and you're figuratively treading the freezing water of the Antarctic Ocean...you're on Sustaining Support right now. By the way, could you please move over to make room in the water for the 11.5.8 users who will be joining you later today?

So, if you’re an 11i user today(regardless of version), your support agreement has either changed already or will be changing soon. What should you be doing? That answer will be different for each EBS customer. In my shop, sticking with 11.5.10 until we move to Fusion Apps looks like a good plan at this particular moment. Some customers are planning to upgrade to R12 in 2008 and that's probably the right answer for them (for example, if SarOx is a big issue in your business, I would strongly encourage you to consider R12). The key really lies in recognizing the change and addressing that change as soon as possible. In doing so, I recommend that you work through the 8 Steps of Change laid out in “Our Iceberg Is Melting”:

SET THE STAGE

1. Create a Sense of Urgency: help others see the need for change and the importance of acting immediately.

2. Pull Together the Guiding Team: make sure there is a powerful group guiding the change—one with leadership skills, bias for action, credibility, communications ability, authority, analytical skills.

DECIDE WHAT TO DO

3. Develop the Change Vision and Strategy: clarify how the future will be different from the past, and how you can make that future a reality.

MAKE IT HAPPEN

4. Communicate for Understanding and Buy-in: make sure as many others as possible understand and accept the vision and the strategy.

5. Empower Others to Act: remove as many barriers as possible so that those who want to make the vision a reality can do so.

6. Produce Short-Term Wins: create some visible, unambiguous successes as soon as possible.

7. Don’t Let Up: press harder and faster after the first successes. Be relentless with instituting change after change until the vision becomes a reality.

MAKE IT STICK

8. Create a New Culture: hold on to the new ways of behaving, and make sure they succeed, until they become a part of the very culture of the group.

You can learn more about how to proceed here…you can also part with about $15 and buy the book (no, I’m not getting any residuals or referral fees – I just like the book and think it applies to this situation).

So enough with the talk. Do something!

Some Final Thoughts On OOW 07

Now that I've had a weekend to ponder OOW, I have some final thoughts that may be worth sharing...

First, from a personal and networking perspective, OOW 07 was a great conference. The ACE dinner, meeting the very innovative Oracle AppsLab team, the AppsLab meetup (where one of the highlghts of the conference was the chance to meet and talk face-to-face with a few of the "Enterprise Irregulars"), the Innovation Excellence awards, the OAUG Appreciation event (great to see so many well-deserving Oracle folks recognized, including Nadia Bendejdou, Steven Chan, and Chris Warticki), catching up with old friends....the list goes on and on. My only regret is missing the Blogger Meetup Tuesday evening (I was fighting a bug and finally had to take some time to rest). I also had a great "date": Oracle's Linda Fishman-Hoyle from the Fusion Upgrade Program Office. If you ever get an opportunity to work with Linda, don't hesitate...your life will be richer for the experience.

Second, although I did not get everything I wanted about Fusion Apps at OOW 07, I did learn some pretty important things:

• Oracle is on-track to delivery the first stand-along Fusion Apps in the first half of 2008. The first apps released will be salesforce automation tools based on existing Siebel products: Sales Prospector, Sales References and Sales Tools.
  

• The first integrated suite will also be delivered in 2008. However, the scope of what will be delivered is still unclear to me. I do know that the first release will not offer a complete functional replacement for EBS 11.5.10 or R12. In fact, if I heard Steve Miranda correctly during the OAUG Fusion Council panel session, manufacturing is definitely out-of-scope for the first release. At any rate, I suspect that Fusion Apps will be released in a series of increments (sales force automation, maybe an integrated Financials Suite, then HR, and so on).
  

• The upgrade from any Oracle Apps products to Fusion Apps will be an "A to B" upgrade. That essentially means that you'll create a new instance for Fusion Apps, configure that instance, then copy the data from your old production instance to your new Fusion Apps instance. The data will be kept as current as possible through "data streaming". The upgrade information is probably the best solid info I got about Fusion Apps from OOW 07 - I now understand that migrating will be an upgrade rather than a reimplemenation, and that there is significant thought going into making the upgrade as smooth as possible (given the significant technology changes, the upgrade will be more complex than what many of us - especially EBS folks - have seen in the past, but I feel much better about it now than I did two weeks ago).
  

• The opening UI looks to be heavily involved with gadets built with Google tools (which makes sense considering that Fusion Apps will support OpenSocial APIs). The subsequent UIs appeared to rely more on the WebCenter Framework, and are heavy with ratings, tag clouds, AJAX, and collaboration features. Embedded analytics also seemed to be everywhere.
  

• Customers are very concerned at a planning level with whether they should prepare for Fusion Apps and how to prepare for Fusion Apps. There's still a pretty high level of angst over planning the details of moving to this new technology without causing a long-term interruption in enterprise operations (that's the only explanation I can come up with for drawing a crowd of 137 to my Thursday afternoon session - I expected a virtual ghost town).
  

Third, outside of Fusion Applications, there were lots of interesting announcements and information: Oracle VMWare (which is actually an Oracle Linux-like play to support an open source product), the upcoming release of 11g AS, and many others.

Fourth, some "out of the box" thinking made OOW 07 a very unique experience: I got quite a bit from both the NoSlide Zone and the Unconference, and was even inspired by the Experience Innovation exhibits.

Fifth, but certainly not 5th in terms of importance, the release of Oracle Mix is a huge event. Providing a social networking environment where Oracle customer and employees can "mix it up" is a significant step in promoting innovation in the Oracle community. I personally think OOW 07 will be remembered most of the initial release of Oracle Mix.

However, even in light of items 1 through 5, the best part of OOW 07 (for me) came from the readers of this blog. So many of you took the time to tell me how much you appreciated what we're doing here. It's that kind of feedback that keeps me writing this stuff. Thanks to all of you - it really means a lot to me.

Overall, I have to rate this conference as the best software conference I've ever attended (notwithstanding my frustration of the lack of Fusion Apps info). And -gulp- we're only 10 months away from OOW 08.

OpenWorld 2007 - Thursday Communique

I spent much of Thursday in efforts to consider what Larry Ellison had to say on Wednesday. His keynote hinted at some pretty deep concepts regarding the future of Oracle Apps. I'm still attempting to sort it all out...

Spent some time on the smaller exhibit floor in Moscone West, rechecking the conclusions I drew from my time on the exhibit floor in Moscone South on Wednesday. No change in my observations and conclusions...there is a certain sense of urgency and even desperation in the air, especially from some of the smaller software and service providers.

My own presentation, "A Roadmap To Fusion Applications", went pretty well. I was surprised by the size of the crowd. The usual Thursday afternoon session at OpenWorld draws about eight people. Over 130 people attended this session, which indicates to me the need to address the "how" details of preparing for Fusion Applications. Lots of good questions, which is always a strong sign to a presenter that the message got through to the audience. Now it's time to work version 4.0 of the roadmap - I'll put it up here when it's finished, probably sometime in January.

During my session, I took a quick "show of hands" on how many E-Business customers were using Oracle Irep. Although almost two-thirds of the audience identified themselves as technical and as E-Business users, only one person (other than me) had ever accessed Irep - Brian Bent from Solution Beacon (a really smart guy from a great company, so it's no surprise that he's clued into Irep). This tells me we must do a much better job of getting the story on the value of Oracle Irep out to the user community.

Time to go catch a plane...I'll put up some more thoughts over the weekend.

OpenWorld 2007 - Wednesday Communique

Did a few things today that were a bit unusual, partially because I ran out of energy Tuesday evening and partially because I wanted to sample a few other events at this year's OpenWorld.

I spent some time on the Exhibit floor today, just wandering around and talking to people. My intent was to get a feel for the services and 3rd party software market spaces relating to Oracle Apps. I actually do this, to some degree, at every conference I attend. Anyway, I've had a feeling for some time now that Oracle's breadth of services has grown to the point that some of the smaller 3rd party software and service providers are getting squeezed. My wanderings today reinforced that feeling - there was a definite sense of urgency by many of the vendors on the exhibit floor. I'll expand on this in a later post.

I also spend some time at the Innovation exhibits. Amazing stuff. Dell had a vertical waterfall and a transparent markup board for people to define "What Green Means". Intel also had a great exhibit. I'm hoping I can facilitate JPL's participation next year.

Getting back to a session, I did make it to Markus Zirn's "Fusion Middleware for Business and Functional Managers". Markus did a fine job of using customer stories to relate Fusion Middleware components with business benefits. Markus' goal for this presentation, which he accomplished very well, was to drive home the idea that customers should implement Fusion Middleware components to achieve specific business objectives, rather than just implementing technology for technology's sake.

Finally, I attended the OAUG Appreciation Reception at the Varnish Fine Arts. OAUG handed out 12 Ambassador Awards to very deserving Oracle employees. It was great to see the user community recognize the outstanding efforts of these people.

Well, tomorrow is my own presentation on the Roadmap to Fusion Applications. I guess this means I'll have to review myself tomorrow...

OpenWorld 2007 - Tuesday Communique

Well, I must admit that the "Cone of Silence" over Fusion Apps was lifted a bit today. Not as much as I'd personally like, but probably as much as Oracle is willing to lift it at this time (for understandable reasons, given the recent major changes at the company - they need some time to work things out).

Steve Miranda gave an excellent demonstration of the Fusion user interface in his presentation "Introducing Fusion Applications". In fact, Steve gave a very strong overall presentation. Personally, I think this should have been a keynote address for the conference. You can get a great summary of this and all of the Fusion Apps previews of the day, including some screen shots, here.

Cliff Godwin immediately followed Steve Miranda's presentation with another strong presentation on the upgrade plans for Fusion Applications. As usually, Cliff provided some of the best content of the entire conference. He confirmed that the upgrade to Fusion Apps from the other Oracle apps will be an "A to B" upgrade (which is a little different for those of us with a background in E-Business upgrades) - create a new instance, set up the instance, then move your data from the old instance to the new one. Transactions created during the upgrade will be captured using a "data stream" approach (more on this in a later article, I promise!). So, after seeing Cliff's presentation, I'm pretty convinced - moving to Fusion Applications will be an upgrade rather than a reimplementation.

Later in the day, Tim Dexter gave a great update on XML Publisher/BI Publisher. I like Tim's sessions because he puts his skin on the table. I thought it was pretty bold to email invoices from his demo environment to some attendees during the session. Tim also fessed up on things Publisher can't do, but provided some time for partners with products to fill those gaps...a pretty pragmatic approach to dealing with Publisher's limits.

I also had the pleasure of attending the Oracle Innovation Excellence award reception Tuesday evening. These awards were given to customers for innovation in using Fusion Middleware to extend the functionality of Oracle Apps. I had the wonderful opportunity to engage as a judge for this year's awards and, I have to say, the judging was very tough. There are some folks out there doing some very creative things with Fusion Middleware and Oracle Apps. I understand that Oracle plans to share these stories in some type of published booklet after the conference - be sure to get one when they come out.

I also had a chance to sit in on some sessions at the Unconference and the No Slide Zone. It's amazing how great presentations can be when the PowerPoint "crutch" is removed. I sure hope Oracle sticks with both these programs next year.

All in all, not a bad day...I feel like I'm getting my money's worth.

OpenWorld 2007 - Monday Communique

Some of the major developments on Monday...

Oracle Mix - the buzz of the show this year is Oracle Mix, a pretty spectacular means of sharing ideas, getting answers to questions, and networking. Oracle took their Connect apps, applied what they learned, then released Connect outside their firewall for the entire Oracle community to use. Mix is pretty nifty - my gears are really turning on ways we can use this stuff within JPL and NASA. Check it out for yourself.

Fusion Applications - Although the information available on Fusion Apps continues to be limited, the IOUC did present a managed release of a strategic roadmap wizard for customers considering a move to Fusion Apps. It's pretty high-level stuff, but the questions considered are very similar to those I went through in my own shop while building JPL's own roadmap.

Fusion Middleware - Lots of good information on increasing the functionality of ERP applications with Fusion Middleware, including a good model presented by Nadia Bendjedou and Markus Zirn that helps draw some lines between extensions and customizations. There's also some emphasis on using Oracle Irep, which seems to be new information for many people here...as a near-daily user of Irep as a reference for finding APIs in the E-Business Suite, I'm amazed at the number of people don't know about it or use it.

Oracle VM - Oracle announced the release of Xen-based Oracle VM, a hypervisor that provisions virtual servers, manages virtual environments and moves applications from one server to another while the program continues to run. VM is a hot space at the moment, so it's not a suprise to see Oracle unveil a VM product.

On a personal note, I had a great time with the OracleAppsLab crew at the 21st Amendment last night. They're a small crew of very talented people more than willing to share their thoughts on innovation and Web 2.0, especially as those things apply within the enterprise.

OpenWorld 2007 - Sunday Communique

Maybe he could talk about the tricks of the trade
Maybe he could talk about himself
Maybe he could talk about the money that he made
Maybe he'd be saying something else
But in the communique you know he's gonna come clean
Think what he say, say what he mean
Maybe on Monday he got something to say
Communication, Communique, Communique
- From "Communique" by Dire Straits

This is the first of a series of what will be a daily "Communique" I plan to make from OpenWorld 2007. Rather than taking an approach where "he could talk about himself" in a "What I Did On My Summer Vacation" fashion, I hope this series will be a combination of things I've learned and things I did here that will have some value for you. So let's get on with the Sunday update...

The OAUG Fusion Council Panel

Things did go pretty well with the session despite a few challenges. I'm sure some folks missed the session due to a mess involving conference hotel bus lines and San Francisco's annual Veteran's Day Parade. In addition, the Oracle folks are definitely taking a very conservative approach about who can say what regarding Fusion Apps. Nevertheless, the session provided some good information.

I had the opportunity for an informal chat with Steve Miranda before the Panel began. In that chat, Steve was kind enough to answer several questions I had on whether Fusion Applications would be an upgrade or a fresh implementation. Based on what Steve told me, I am convinced that the path to Fusion Applications from the Apps Unlimited product lines will be an upgrade. Some aspects of the upgrade may be more complex than the typical upgrade process we know today, but it sounds like an upgrade to me...that's good news.

During the Panel discussion itself, I fired up TWitter via my cell phone. The incoming tweets provided a couple of good questions for Steve. Overall, the Twitter thing worked pretty well. Chalk up one for social networking.

Steve shared some news on the status of Fusion Apps development: the Business Requirements and Functional Design docs are complete, as are most of the Technical Design docs - back-end coding is in process. The heavy-duty discussions involve the scope of the first Fusion Apps release. The intent is to focus on the quality of the first release: do the apps provide the functionality Oracle says they do and do the apps work as advertised? As any experienced project manager will tell you, there is a trade-off between project quality, cost and schedule (it's often referred to as the "Project Triangle" model of project scope). It's a constant juggling act over the life of any project, including this one. So the real question, rather than whether or not we'll see a release of Fusion Apps in 2008 as promised, may be what will be delivered with the first release of Fusion Apps?

The Oracle ACE Dinner

My first Oracle ACE dinner. Although I was nervous about attending, Linda Fishman-Hoyle (who is now a Senior Director in the Fusion Upgrade Program Office) was nice enough to hang with me and make introductions. This is a very nice and friendly group of people. I also confirmed my feelings of humility at being included in this group. This is a gathering of some very smart and experienced people. I learned quite a bit just by being quiet and listening to the conversations around me.

While I just don't have time and space to write about everything that went on yesterday, Sunday was a great start to the conference. Things should really start cooking tomorrow...

Fusion Fun For OpenWorld

In the whirlwind of last-minute preparations for OpenWorld, I’ve had some real “fun” this week from my involvement in Oracle Fusion. The result is that I have good news and bad news. Let’s talk about the good news first, then move on to the bad news.

The Good News

The good news is actually relates to the recent organizational changes at Oracle. With Thomas Kurian taking over all Fusion development, Oracle Apps customers now have a chance to hear about leveraging Fusion technology directly from the man in charge. Thomas is presenting Session S292719, titled “Getting Value from Oracle Fusion Technology with Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel and JD Edwards Applications Today”. As I understand it, the gist of the discussion will be focused on leveraging Fusion Middleware with Oracle Applications. As an apps customer, I’d like to hear what the head guy has in mind, so I plan to be there.

The Bad News

Now for the bad news. I received word Friday morning that Nadia Bendjedou, Steven Chan and Rob Conden will not be participating in the OAUG Fusion Council Panel on Sunday afternoon. The only Oracle participant will be Steve Miranda. With all due respect to Steve, I’m disappointed that the others will not be joining us. I think each of them has a unique perspective on the Fusion product line that would have been valuable for Oracle customers to hear. Unfortunately, (and this is strictly my perspective), it appears that Oracle has tightened up “the cone of silence” over communications regarding Fusion Applications – it’s my understanding that only certain Oracle executives will be authorized to speak about Fusion Apps at OpenWorld 2007. Personally, it’s not the way I would choose to build enthusiasm in my customer base for an upcoming product, but it’s not my choice to make…the folks at Oracle obviously have a different opinion. Because I wrote in earlier posts that Nadia, Steven and Rob would be participating, I felt it’s only fair to share this latest change. Knowing what I know of Steve Miranda, we’ll still have a great panel discussion. I just don’t think it will be as great as it could have been with the participation of Nadia, Steven and Rob.

Twittering From Oracle OpenWorld

I’m going to try my hand with Twitter during the OAUG Fusion Council Panel this Sunday afternoon at Oracle OpenWorld. Rather than bog down Eddie Award’s OOW stream, tweet me @fteter. Two caveats:

1. My flight touches down at SFO about two hours before the session begins – that should be enough time to get there, but you never know with airline on-time performance being what it is these days. I could be a little late getting to the session.
2. I may be working off my very legacy hardwdare cell phone (the clam shell lives on!) rather than my spiffy traveling notebook, so the slowness of my thumbs may prevent me from getting back to you as quickly as we’d both like. If this turns out to be the case, please be patient with an old guy trying a new thing. If I get too slow, I’ll bundle up the questions I receive and tweet them back out with answers later…and I’ll summarize here on the blog as well.

So, if you have questions to ask regarding the status or the future of Fusion Applications, tweet me Sunday afternoon between 1:30 and 2:30 PST (U.S.) – I’ll do my best to get your questions answered by our panel of experts.

Now, about that panel. The OAUG representatives on the panel consist of John Stouffer, Basheer Khan, and me. The Oracle folks who have graciously agreed to engage are Nadia Bendjedou, Steven Chan, Rob Conden, and Steve Miranda – a pretty impressive group for answering your Fusion-related questions. So, if you’re at OpenWorld on Sunday, come join us. If not, send me a tweet.

Something For Everyone!

Something familiar,
Something peculiar,
Something for everyone:
A comedy tonight!

Something appealing,
Something appalling,
Something for everyone:
A comedy tonight!

--Opening lines of Stephen Sondheim's "A Comedy Tonight", from the musical "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum".

I've already voiced my opinion that, as much I hope to be wrong, we won't hear much detail about Fusion Applications during OpenWorld 2007...it's just too early in the development cycle to have much to tell. However, that doesn't mean that Oracle Apps users will be left out in the cold next week. We'll be provided with plenty of information on using Fusion Middleware with Oracle Applications. In fact, there are many OpenWorld events focused on leveraging Fusion Middleware with the major Oracle Applications horizontal product lines...regardless of which product lines you're using. There's literally "something for everyone".

The Fusion Middleware evangelists at Oracle have put together OpenWorld guides for Fusion Middleware events that relate to specific versions of Oracle Applications:

• E-Business Suite Technology Planning Guide for Oracle OpenWorld
  

• Siebel Technology Planning Guide for Oracle OpenWorld
  

• Peoplesoft Technology Planning Guide for Oracle OpenWorld

If you're an Oracle Applications user, checking the appropriate guide may be the difference between a tragedy (you missed out on key information - a tragic event) and a comedy (you leave the conference with key "takeaways" for your enterprise - a happy ending) for your OpenWorld experience.

What I Need From OpenWorld

Dont try to describe the ocean if youve never seen it
Dont ever forget that you just may wind up being wrong

- From "Manana" by Jimmy Buffett

I need one thing from Oracle OpenWorld above all others: information on Fusion Applications. Oracle hasn't shared much on Fusion Apps up to this point in time and, as I've written in the past, they have understandable reasons for playing their cards close to the chest.

Now, however, we're getting relatively close to the planned 2008 releases. Like many customers I've talked with, I'm getting frustrated over the limitations on my ability to plan due to the lack of available information on Fusion Apps. I've worked hard to read the tea leaves, search the Gartner reports, make projections bases on Fusion Middleware directions, guess on the basis of 10-second sound bites, and so on...it's not enough anymore. My management and my peers (both inside and outside of JPL) are growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of details. In working with both my own management and other customers, I feel like I'm in the position of trying to describe the ocean without having seen it.

So, what I need most from Oracle OpenWorld is an update on the development of Fusion Applications. Are the Functional Design Docs finished yet? Is there an estimated delivery schedule that might be just a little more specific than "2008"? Do what business applications or processes or functionality will be delivered first? Could we see some user interface prototypes? Could somebody please just throw me a freakin' bone here??!!

Will I get what I need? Probably not. I suspect I'm asking around a year too early. Still, it never hurts to ask...