Thoughts On Oracle Partner Churn

My morning routine includes checking my email somewhere around 8 a.m. Once I waded through all the "Good Morning Good Sir" and "Increase Your..." junk (gotta improve the spam filtering), I ran into a few emails that really got me thinking. These emails were involving resignations/farewells for various positions in various user groups, all due to consolidation within the Oracle-related 3rd-party consulting and integration provider market spaces. Seems there has been quite a bit of change in this space recently, but it's not been widely noticed (perhaps it's been overshadowed by the acquistions and product changes within Oracle itself). To name a few:

- Solbourne has been acquired by Deloitte and is in the process of winding down as an independent entity

- Triora Group started up earlier this year, with a significant contingent of ex-Solution Beacon people (which says something positive about SB's ability to find and develop good talent)

- TUSC was acquired in January by Rolta, one of India's leading IT companies

In addition, I've seen an increase in the number of changes by people employed in the Oracle partner space. I won't name names here, because this is a blog and not a gossip column, but there does seem to be more than the usual amount of churn in the workforce among Oracle partners.

My viewpoint is that Oracle partners, especially the smaller ones, are essential to achieving Oracle's strategy of increasing SME market share. The smaller or "botique" implementation, integration and service partners are based on business models that can profitably engage in the smaller chunks of business that just don't make sense for Oracle Consulting's business model (I suspect I might be able to lump Deloitte, BearingPoint, and several others in with Oracle Consulting here, but I'm not familiar enough with their business models to do so with any acceptable degree of certainty). The current trend of churn and consolidation looks like a potential risk to the success of Oracle's strategy - it's in Oracle's interests to have a strong community of smaller partners to implement, integrate and extend Oracle's software in the SME space.

So, how about it? Does anyone else see what I'm seeing here or am I just finding the small cloud inside a huge silver lining? Anybody out there willing to share a relevant story? Comment away!

A Little This And A Little That

My apologies for failing to post much over the past two weeks. I've been distracted by a pretty wild ride regarding my personal health. I went in for an angiogram late last week, which is a pretty nifty procedure to witness once you get over the fact that they're running wire up a main artery to your heart. The good news is that my heart is just fine. The bad news is that I've been diagnosed with Type II Diabetes...ah, chocolate cake, I knew thee well. Anyway, now the hubub is all done and I'm in the process of climbing back into the saddle, so let's catch up up with a little this and a little that:

• Oracle's acquisition of Skywire is pretty interesting. My guess, for what it's worth, is that they'll combine Skywire with the recently acquired AdminServer to offer up a complete software suite for the insurance industry. In the long run, I think this will be a big development.
  

• Oracle's Q4 results seem pretty impressive. However, with the changes in company structure and product lines, it's hard to tell what's happening on a year-over-year basis (or even quarter-over-quarter, for that matter). Nevertheless, Oracle's strategy of building market share through acquisitions (based on a view that the business IT market has matured to the point of minimal or no growth) seems to be working very well.
  

• The development of Fusion Applications seems to be rolling along. During a recent Diazepam-induced stupor (read that first paragraph again and you'll get the context), I recalled Oracle's Steve Miranda commenting during Collaborate 08 that Fusion Apps will first roll out with availability limited to specific types of customers, with general availability coming later (I'm sure Steve will correct me if I got that wrong...I'll just blame it on the Diazepam). I would not be surprised to hear an announcement along these lines at Oracle OpenWorld 2008; maybe limited availability by the end of the calendar year, with general availability sometime in 2009. Please keep in mind that this is mostly speculation on my part, so please don't bet the company on this concept or these dates, okay?
  

• Speaking of Oracle OpenWorld, I may have a different experience this year in that I may not be presenting at all (for the first time in several years). I have a presentation proposal up on Oracle Mix called "Fusion On A Shoestring", but it doesn't look as though it will garner enough votes to make the cut. In any event, I find myself actually looking forward to the possibility of attending as a non-presenter. I've gotten a little complacent about how I structure my OOW experience in the past few years, so attending as a non-presenter will force me to "up my game" by engaging in the conference in ways that are new for me (like finally meeting Tim Dexter face-to-face). So I'm pretty excited about the upcoming conference, even though it's still a few months away. We'll be talking about what looks good to me at OOW 2008 as soon as the schedule firms up a bit.
  

• Got a real kick out of reading Jake's "We Heart Hackers" post. I've recently had the chance to do some database development work in PL/SQL myself. It was kind of like watch reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation - you just don't realize how much you miss it until you pick it up again. It's been a long time since I used PL/SQL, so my skills were a bit rusty...but, like riding a bike, it came back to me pretty quickly. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy working with PL/SQL.
  

• I've also had the recent chance to get involved in extending the E-Business Suite using Fusion Middleware components. In fact, I'm managing a project now that may include using the SOA Suite to expose EBS APIs as services in support of a BPEL-based project solution. This is stuff we probably could not have done well three or four years ago. It's pretty exciting just to see how far things have come and how easy it is to get started.

Well, that's all I've got for the moment. I do, however, have some subjects taking shape in my head that will be the subject of posts here over the next several days...stay tuned!

Mile Markers On The Upgrade Path To R12

Even though my groovy "classic" iPhone has a great Google maps app, I have to admit that I still think in very old-school terms when I take a roadtrip...especially in the U.S. My father worked for the U.S. Geological Survey most of his working life, in the cartography division. As a result, I learned to read a map during my early elementary school years (my "final exam" including mapping out a route for a car trip from Minneapolis to South-Central Missouri when I was 8 years old - we actually took the trip based on my directions and arrived at the destination with time to spare). Whenever I travel by car, I still determine where I am by matching up reference points to the map: intersections, unique features, and especially highway mile markers.

As many Oracle E-Business customers are now seriously considering an upgrade to R12, I'm often asked about good references and resources available for planning an R12 upgrade. I have what I believe are a good set of mile markers for the trip to R12. I've been meaning to post something on the subject for some time now, and Steven Chan's recent post on a new best practices whitepaper for adopting R12 reignited this subject in my brain.

My list of basic reference materials and resources for an upgrade to R12 comes mostly from blog posts and discussion with Steven, John Stouffer, Brian Bent and many others. I've just consumed and consolidated some of the info developed by others. With that caveat, here are the references and resources I've found most valuable in planning upgrades from 11i to R12 (including where to find those references and resources for yourself):

• Best Practices for Adopting E-Business Suite Release 12 - Orace MetaLink Note 580299.1

• Oracle Applications Upgrade Guide: Release 11i to Release 12 - here

• Oracle E-Business Suite Upgrade Resources Roadmap - Metalink Note 461705.1

• Oracle Maintenance Wizard, which analyzes your 11i environment and produces a tailored 11i to R12 upgrade plan complete with detailed patching recommendations - Metalink Note 215527.1

• Security Best Practices for R12 - Metalink Note 403537.1

In the cases where information is contained in a MetaLink note, be aware that Oracle considers these notes to be "living documents" - you'll want to check them for changes on a regular basis.

So, that's my best shot on the subject. What about those of you who have recently upgrade or are building plans to do so? What reference docs and resources do you recommend?

ADDENDUM [6/16/08] : In my original post, I failed to point out that Steven Chan has also blogged on this subject. His post includes my mile markers plus a few extras. You can read Steven's thoughts on the matter here.

Lessons Learned

Lessons learned are like
Bridges burned
You only need to cross them but once
Is the knowledge gained
Worth the price of the pain?
Are the spoils worth the cost of the hunt?
      - From Dan Fogelberg’s “Lessons Learned”

I've been in the business arena for a long time now; long enough to reinvent myself and change industries several times. In doing so, I've built up a habit of occasionally taking the opportunity to pause and reflect on some of the things I’ve learned through experience. I spent most of the past few days doing just that.

Most of my learning over my career has come to me through making…shall we say…less than optimal choices. In other words, I’ve learned a lot over the years as a result of dumb choices and boneheaded moves. These lessons from the school of hard knocks continue to come to me today (does that make me a life-long learner or just a little dense?) in areas far beyond the scope of this blog. But those lessons are the ones that stick with you, so I wouldn’t trade the experiences if I could.

I’ve personally found the same concept to be true with Oracle Apps: the best lessons are those learned as a result of royally messing things up. I’ve always maintained that you haven’t really “earned your stripes” with Oracle until you’ve put your job on the line at least once by making a huge big mistake or two with the apps (you know, mess up the year-end financial statements, bring down the production instance for a few days…something really big).

Now, you don’t need to make the same mistakes I made and suffer the same pain I suffered in order to learn the lessons I learned. Many of you out there are smart enough to learn from the mistakes of others. In fact, I think the Oracle user community would benefit greatly if we shared our failures and mistakes in the same way we share our successes (although I doubt that our foul-ups will ever make the PR Newswire). While many of us are too embarrassed to share our failures, think how much better off the overall user experience would be if we could prevent others from making the same mistakes we’ve made. I believe this so strongly that I’m even willing to go first (at least first as far as this particular discussion is concerned). So, let me hang a few painful Oracle lessons learned over the years out there right now. I’ll just share the gist of the lessons, but leave the accompanying background and questionable decisions on my part to your imagination (please keep the laughter down - people around you may be trying to work):

• In the E-Business Suite Financials, unresolved cost transaction errors are essentially unrecorded inventory. The minute you resolve those errors, the costs will hit the books…in the period in which the errors were resolved. Delaying resolution to future accounting periods is a great way to tank the company’s stock or get yourself a new CFO.
  

• Writing records directly to apps database tables with custom code is never a good idea, as those foreign keys can be really tricky!
  

• You may want to consider testing patches before you apply them to your production instance.
  

• Did you know that Oracle writes manuals on basic concepts as part of their product documentation?
  

• Never go live on a product with a version number ending in “0” (yeah, I know everybody knows this…or, at least, everybody knows it now).
  

• The first person to respond to your SR is rarely the person with the answer to your problem.
  

• A name is not a good candidate for a primary key.
  

• The biggest issue with custom application performance is a lack of general understanding about bind variables.
  

• Exiting a form and killing a query are two separate things.
  

• That error message rarely means what you first think it means. Don’t jump to conclusions.

• Telling a support analyst that you "...could throw a dart on a bus and will hit somebody smarter" will not get you SEV 1 status.

So, there you have it…I’ve hung some of my dirty laundry out in the hopes that someone else will learn from it and avoid the mistakes I made. How about you? Any pithy lessons you’d be willing to share?