While I Was Off

So while I was off being a lazy slug at the first of the year, two of my favorite people got together to talk about the current state of Fusion Applications.  The always effervescent Ray Wang from Constellation Research interviewed Oracle's intelligent and well-spoken Steve Miranda (yes, I'm obviously pouring on a little bit for both of them - it's only a little stretch, but a guy like me needs all the goodwill he can get).  You can read the interview for yourself here.

Some noteworthy tidbits I gleaned from the interview:

• 400 customers on Fusion Applications, exclusive of RightNow, Taleo, Oracle Business Analytics, or Fusion Middleware.  I've wondered about this particular number for some time; thanks to Ray and Steve for getting it out there.

• Out of those 400 customers, 100 are live.

• Oracle is eating their own Fusion dog food.  They're specifically using Fusion CRM, Fusion Financials Accounting Hub, and Talent Performance Management.

• Throughout the interview, Steve emphasized credibility over development speed and publicity.  I see that philosophy taking root throughout Oracle's Applications development teams, the E-Business 12.2 release in particular.  While it's counter intuitive for an industry that seems to reward those who release first (regardless of quality), it's a worthwhile concept for developing and delivering enterprise applications.  I hope it sticks.

• Oracle is differentiating applications from their competitors through depth and breadth of features.  It's an interesting approach, especially in the SaaS space where most vendors are offering very basic functionality.

• Speaking of SaaS, it seems like the Fusion HCM products are driving Oracle's SaaS sales.  The traction in Financials and PPM still seems to be mostly on-premise.

It's a good article.  Worth the read if you haven't done so already.  Highly recommended.