Fusion chief Jesper Andersen leaves Oracle. Fusion future in question

[Eric Lehti]

Hey what do you World users think about the future of Fusion, now that Jesper Anderson, the brains behind Fusion, has left Oracle? I wonder if Jesper left because Fusion is not coming along as fast as expected.
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http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=478

and a quote from Larry Ellison:
I think no change in terms of our schedules. So we have actually launched some Fusion applications already. We have launched a variety of CRM applications based on Fusion technology. They are available as Software as a Service. Maybe the most interesting one is one called Sales Prospector, which offers a capability not available with Salesforce.com. Specifically, it data mines your installed base and tells you what product you should be selling to that customer next and who your best references are for selling that product. So we have got a whole second generation set of CRM products to make salespeople more productive versus the first generation, which really was to help managers do a better job forecasting their sales. So those Fusion technology based applications are actually already in the marketplace.

We will continue to deliver Fusion technology applications until ultimately we have a Fusion version of every application that we sell but it will take some time before we get all the way through all the different applications that we offer. But the big — there will be a suite of Fusion

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http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9114099&intsrc=hm_list

Oracle app dev chief leaves, raising questions on Fusion

Jesper Andersen was 'the brains' behind Oracle's next-generation app suite


A top executive at Oracle Corp. in charge of application development has left the company, according to reports, raising questions about the status of its high-profile Fusion applications project as its annual OpenWorld conference nears.

Jesper Andersen was Oracle's senior vice president for application development. He will join Cisco Systems Inc. to run a network management team, according to ZDNet blogger Dennis Howlett on Wednesday, citing an internal company e-mail, which he later confirmed with an Oracle spokeswoman.

According to his online biography, Andersen was "responsible for initiatives that cross Business Applications, including Application Integration Architecture (AIA) and overall Industry Application Strategy."

The Oracle spokeswoman told Howlett that "Jesper was not part of the Fusion development team (which reports to Chuck Rozwat), and that our Fusion plans remain on track."

But according to independent analyst Frank Scavo, Andersen was considered "the brains behind Oracle's Fusion," its next generation of application software that is meant to merge Oracle's apps with the PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards lines acquired when it bought PeopleSoft in 2004."His departure has to be a loss to Oracle," Scavo wrote.

Other Oracle observers called Andersen "one of Oracle's thought leaders behind Fusion Applications" and "Mr. Fusion."

As recently as OpenWorld 2007, Oracle executives said the first components of Fusion Applications would ship by the end of this year. Fusion Applications are different from Oracle's already available Fusion Middleware.

Oracle has said little publicly since then. It traditionally announces product news at OpenWorld. This year's show is set for Sept. 21-25.

Andersen is the second top executive closely associated with Fusion development to leave Oracle in the past year. John Wookey, who also had the title of senior vice president of application development, left Oracle in October 2007






http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=disaster_recovery&articleId=110086

 

[JEMILLER]

In my opinion the "Fusion" name was just a marketing gimmick introduced during the acquisition years of '04 and '05 to give newly acquired customers the feeling that there was a concrete strategy behind the acquisitions. If you have had a chance to listen to Charles Phillips describe Fusion is sounds like a massive stovepiping effort using web services and a shared model for transactions and data so that multiple products can be linked together. Initially these products will remain standalone installs that are linked using services. e.g. JDE EnterpriseOne to Enterprise HR, PeopleSoft Enterprise to Siebel. Over time it sounds like they will take pieces of logic from various products and implement that in some common language and that will make the application a Fusion app versus Fusion-enable app.

Granted, when a key architect leaves there may be some slowing of the process. Given the scale of what they are trying to do there is no way that Jesper was the only person to understand how they would merge multiple products onto their Fusion technology stack. I am sure that this is being done by a committee of designers and apps specialists and an army of developers.

Oracle is a very sales driven organization. They want to have something to sell everybody. I see the Fusion stack as a combination of technology and applications that can be offered to any sort of customer. Hopefully Oracle will become a sort of IBM in its heyday with a well integrated suite of products for sale as opposed to a Computer Associates with a massive catalog of acquired products all kept in their little silos.

That is my stab at it. I decided when this Peoplesoft-Oracle roller coaster started to not count on anything until it is delivered. So far JDE has been very well cared for under the Oracle umbrella.