Fusion Applications - The More You Know, The Better You'll Feel
Every morning, I check my favorite Oracle-related news sources and blogs for the latest buzz. Although it takes longer these days as my IT colleague has blocked my ability to use Firefox. Today, I stumbled across a great piece of research at The Register. The article, "Oracle's Fusion Applications Strategy: What The Customers Think", is based on 321 responses to a survey of Oracle Applications Users who are members of The Register's Technology Panel. This is pretty similar to the Fusion Applications Customer Profiling initiative recently completed by the International Oracle User Council (IOUC), but The Register's sample size is much larger.The IOUC survey results were recently presented during Oracle OpenWorld (OOW). You can find the presentation and review the results for yourself at the OOW presentation download site.
The Register survey results indicated that Oracle Application customers were concerned about:
1. Oracle's lack of clarity and consistency in dealing with the future management of its multiple product lines.
2. The possibility that Oracle will delivery an immature and inelegantly integrated set of applications in order to meet self-imposed schedule milestones.
3. Fear about costs, disruption and protection of investments, mostly rooted in a concern that a migration to Oracle Fusion Applications will be forced upon them at some time in the future.
After sharing these concerns and concluding that only 15% of customers were completely sold on the Oracle Fusion Application strategy, The Register survey disclosed another very interesting result: there is a clear correlation between the level of customer confidence and the customer's depth of Fusion knowledge. For example, customers stating that the Fusion story is well understood in their organizations are also very confident of their investment being protected. These same customers are also very confident that they will obtain benefits in application flexibility through Oracle Fusion Applications. In other words, the more customers understand about Fusion Applications, the more confident they become in Oracle's Fusion Applications strategy...the more you know, the better you'll feel.
I share this timely information from The Register survey because the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) is teaming with Solution Beacon to provide Oracle Applications customers with a wonderful opportunity to feel better with The Road To Las Vegas workshops. The overriding theme of the workshops is "Demystifying Fusion - OAUG's Three Step Fusion Program". The presentations will include some recommendations on getting your organization to Fusion Applications, as well as some hands-on workshops (BPEL and RAC are just a few of the workshop subjects). The overall intent of The Road to Las Vegas is to educate Oracle Applications customers about Fusion Applications - including Release 12, which is an interation on the way to Fusion Applications.
