Scoop! Web Only on Enterprise One 8.11

gregglarkin

gregglarkin

Legendary Poster
Here's some interesting news. PeopleSoft will be announcing that the only client supported on EnterpriseOne 8.11 is the web client. Bye bye citrix and fat clients. Developers and CNCs will still do some things on a non-web client, but the end-users will all be web-based. There will also be some major reengineering on the look and feel of the webinterface. From what little that I have seen, it looks to be a nice improvement. Look for some major announcements on this in the near future.

Gregg Larkin
PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne System Administrator
Praxair, Inc.
175 E Park Drive Tonawanda, NY 14150
 
Damn!
That could leave me w/two career choices:
"Paper or plastic?" or "do you want fries with that?".

Would development be done on full client,
or are the development tools being changed?

TIA

Gene
 
Hi,

So would that mean no more Client Package builds except for developers. Alex you mention that OMW will be removed. How would objects be moved from one pathcode to the other then.?.
 
Why would you pin your career aspirations on one particular technology? Especially package builds? The TAM format has seen it's time come and go....
 
Will EnterpriseOne 8.11 Toolset be similar to the Peoplesoft Toolset? Peoplesoft does not have anything similar to OMW.
 
Here's some interesting news. PeopleSoft will be announcing that the only client supported on EnterpriseOne 8.11 is the web client.

This is not new news. Peoplesoft (JDE) have been talking about this for years now, eliminating the TAM Files, making the product 100% web based, moving away from Windows as a front-end in favour of web front end.

Of course, most of these decisions are made by marketing pundits who have absolutely zero knowledge about how the product is deployed in the field, and even less knowledge about the true intent of the OneWorld CNC Architecture. As you can imagine, most of these middle management weenies are the same idiots that couldn't sell OneWorld under JDE - and decided that their best career move was to sell the company to Peoplesoft.

The problem is, in my view, is that you cannot force the users to go with a web front end for their day to day data entry. None of these weenies do anything but demo OneWorld and talk about how it can be implemented. Give a web screen to an end user as a replacement for their green-screen or Windows GUI ? They'd run a mile, screaming...

The largest software company on the planet dropped their development of their desktop applications under a web-enabled front end for exactly this reason. You'd think that the weenies would have read enough management books to actually listen to the users.

Web is fine as a front end. Its great for executives and users that use the product infrequently. It is BAD for heads-down data entry or users that need POWER TOOLS - which is the fundamental difference that OneWorld provides.

If OneWorld is going to be matched to the same functionality of Open Source web-based ERP systems such as Compiere and GnuE - what is the differential that expects users to pay millions for ?

It seems to me, if you want an analogy here, they've decided to unhitch the cart from the horse, and have left the horse behind. They're not going to get very far pushing the cart....

As for CNC specialists and their skills ? CNC Specialists will have more Web based skills in demand, as opposed to purely the standard CNC administration skills. This was always going to occur - no matter what JDE did with the product, it was always going to evolve, and CNC Specialists need to evolve alongside to survive.
 
Sorry, I meant that OMW was not affected by these changes.

OMW is going to stay there as always, with the same tools and running on a Fat Client, as before.

The changes will basically affect end users only. CNC and Developers will continue using Fat Clients.
 
Any word on the tentative release date of 8.11?

They mentioned late 2004 as a possible release date. It must be fairly close because they are preparing to show live demos of it. They have been doing some usability studies and are rearrainging things so that it takes less clicks to do the more common tasks. The other major change is that the menu navigation will occupy the left hand side of the screen. Advice for new customers, focus on Solution Explorer development and build up your web architecture. That is the direction that the software is heading.

Gregg Larkin
PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne System Administrator
Praxair, Inc.
 
One catch here, If you still on Suite base licensing not the Solution base licensing then you need prepare to incur a hefty cost from PeopleSoft to run EnterpriseOne Web Client. Per my PeopleSoft rep they are not selling Technology Foundation (which contains IBM Websphere, UDB, portal) by itself and they will ask you to migrate your license to the newer license scheme first, so besides the license migration charges you may need to pay additional license charges to cover all your users since migration is not one to one license..in my case I need to pay hundreds' thousand just to be able to run WEB. I am not a happy camper on this whole WEB solution.
 
Web is so crummy.

I don't think people realize what major security holes they're starting to get into when they open up web internally.

First of all, managing thousands of web users is going to be a logistical nightmare - users have the ability to make so many modifications to their internet explorers that can break OneWorld web browsing - that managing these browsers is going to end up becoming like managing FAT Clients. Wheres the manageability ?

Secondly - how much spyware is your company running ? Do you have a spyware solution out there ? Most companies protect certain Microsoft servers with Anti-virus protection - but how many protect through anti-spyware ? Which is more damaging ? You do realize that there is spyware that can suck up your user ID's and Passwords and send all that information across the internet...

The internet traffic is crummy too - look at all the clear-text traffic that contains the users password. All I would have to do is sit in an EnterpriseONE customers car-park with a nice wireless sniffer, and i'd have passwords up the wazoo within a few days.

Citrix encrypts the traffic using ICASecure. It worked well - and the cost difference between Citrix and Websphere is really not much. Had JDE actually SIGNED their damn agreement with Citrix years ago - users would have been entitled to the SAME licensing agreement that they get with Websphere.

I'm starting to look at alternatives to websphere - and agressively so. I think I can come up with Oneworld JAS running on Tomcat/SSH with Firefox hard-linked to the website. Something like this would be completely secure, totally free and 100% spyware adverse. Course its going to take time to get it all working right....
 
Well - its official !

Two weeks after this thread, Peoplesoft managed to create a presentation and talk about "using Citrix to manage an Internet Deployment" - HA !

In effect, the presentation recommends deploying Intenet Explorer through Citrix which substantially reduces the bandwidth, increases security and ensures a much safer, manageable deployment.

LOL

Just WHY did they go to the web freakin client ? I am laughing my freakin hat off right now - so customers are expected to pay for Citrix AND websphere now ? LOL - these web genius' are freakin morons !

So - in 8.11 they get rid of the win32 client (which was the better of the clients) - but we're still forced to use Citrix for the deployment.

Hmmm

The presentation is located at : http://www.peoplesoft.com/advisor/attachments/09010401.pdf

Exactly how is the move to web helping customers ???
 
I doubt they will keep OneWorld toolset for a very long time. Eventually we might have to learn PeopleTool since they claimed PeopleSoft is a pure web base application.

PSEO (OW) is not a pure web base application. We need to use the Generator to create the html front-end in addition to package build and client/server deployment. That is another 5 -6 hours.
 
Hmmm

And you honestly think that Peopltools really is 100% web ?

LOL

What about all the cobol for the batch processes ?

OneWorld is absolutely more "100% web" if JDE had really put their minds and hearts into developing it. It is far more object oriented than any of the other tools - and doesn't rely totally on a rigid second-generation language like Cobol.

If everything had been developed using NER's instead of going directly to business functions (and if the tool had supported everything that was required instead of "copping out" and going to C) - then we'd have seen a lot less problems with "W" environments, functions running in 3-tier environments, and, of course, OneWorld running on the web. NER's get compiled into either C OR Java Serialized Objects - its a great architecture.

Unfortunately, they never streamlined that process (the generator) and made it more efficient. Given enough time and thought, they COULD have parallelized the entire build and made it incredibly fast. Its a pity they didn't think of that - but probably understandable since the only people affected are usually developers and CNC weenies like myself !

If there is someone looking over this entire mess, I'd hope that Peoplesoft came to realize how powerful the OW tools really are, and would actually merge them into their enterprise apps. Then Peoplesoft Enterprise would be able to run applications like Payroll and Posting jobs in parallel, just like Oneworld !
 
Hi,

I received a response in one of my threads (Subject: B9 SP3 - Debug Application Fails) on the developer's site:

"In the new one 8.11 be reread, you do not even have the possibility of using the debug"

Is it true? I am affraid, yes.

I am affraid also, that Development Tools won't be part of the base product and we have to purchase it for additional charge, if we need it.
...and we need it hard: fixing vanilla bugs instead of installing large ESUs (which erases customizations), customizing objects for special and acceptable customer needs, managing localizations when laws change, adding new functionalities - which not part of the product, etc.

Am I a pessimist?

Regards,

Zoltán
...from the developer's site

P.S.: Off-topic a bit.
Would be appreciated, if some of you would be so kind to check my issue/thread "B9 SP3 - Debug Application Fails" on the developers site - maybe somebody knows the solution.
http://www.jdelist.com/ubb/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=77030&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1
Thanks in advance
 
I am an OneWorld developer myself for 5 years. I really hope OneWorld toolset will last at least 20 – 30 years. My career depends on it. We just need to keep an open mind in case PS wants to get rid of it one day.

“And you honestly think that Peopltools really is 100% web ?”
They made that statement, not me. They think People tool is more superior than other ERP tool. I am not 100% convince unless I visually see it and use it.

“What about all the cobol for the batch processes ?”
COBOL is old but it has quality. COBOL is a good language for database manipulation.

“OneWorld is absolutely more "100% web" if JDE had really put their minds and hearts into developing it.”
That is true. However, we should talk about now and future. The past won’t help us much in this case.
 
Hi Zoltan
In my opinion, maybe JDE/PSFT are so confident that 8.11 have ZERO bugs, they are not expecting any ESU's or Debugging to be performed ?

I mean, if the product is 100% perfect, then we wouldn't need any mechanism for running the tools to fix their products. We also don't need to see the debug logs for the same reason - if theres no errors, theres no reason for logging them.

Of course, no-one would believe this. Even Microsoft has some sort of debugging. If I were a customer and I heard something like this, I'd be sorely tempted to start looking at alternatives to OneWorld. Peoplesoft have only themselves to blame for "slow sales" of ANY of their products. Lets take a look at the recent changes :

1. Peoplesoft have alienated the independent users group. Certainly, Quest had some issues as far as their relationship went with JDE - but to completely alienate a customer-driven focus group run by customers ??? This months Connect is the FIRST conference where PSFT will actually be around to answer questions since the customers have experienced the merger (last years was too early)

2. Peoplesoft have been auditing licenses for EVERYONE. In fact the license audit tool was probably the fastest developed tool I've ever seen come out of PSFT/JDE ! Theres a lot of revenue being generated from all the companies on JDE's list - and sometimes this is resulting in some frayed arguments about HOW this tool really is working.

3. Changes to maintenance. Peoplesoft merged the JDE maintenance options to their own - and in many cases, this resulted in higher costs. For more than 12 months, calls have gotten worse, and recently its not even possible to SEE calls that your company have submitted. Multiple help-ticket systems resulted in many calls disappearing.

4. Reduced functionality of the Knowledge Garden. Gradually since the merger of the Peoplesoft and JDE customer websites, the functionality has become worse and worse. Searches result in very few related topics - and now we can no longer see large areas of the Knowledge online - including release dates for service packs, breaking news and MySAR's.

5. A push for 100% web when there are already known issues with the web client. Without consulting their user-base, PSFT decided they "know best" and are pushing for 100% web - whereas currently 95% of all users use the Windows client.

6. Future reduction of development functionality and logging. This will kill the product. Peoplesoft believe they are selling "applications" to users - whereas the selling point of Oneworld was that it really was a toolset primarily, with the user being licensed for applications.

In my opinion, if the executives at Peoplesoft believe that this will force users into making a decision to go with the peoplesoft products OR result with them hanging on to Oneworld while paying through the nose for every small infraction - they'll be sorely wrong. Many of these customers might look elsewhere.

Peoplesoft are right about one thing. A monopoly on Enterprise Software would certainly not help customers. Unfortunately, the PSFT/JDE merger has already created some of the negative aspects of a monopoly.

Well, I think thats the end of my gripes for a while on this topic.
 
Jon,

On 9/1 you wrote "Well - its official !

Two weeks after this thread, Peoplesoft managed to create a presentation and talk about "using Citrix to manage an Internet Deployment" - HA !

In effect, the presentation recommends deploying Intenet Explorer through Citrix which substantially reduces the bandwidth, increases security and ensures a much safer, manageable deployment."

did you by chance pull down and save a copy of that PDF? I can find the reference to that on the knowledge jungle but of course, it doesn't work.

Thanks!

Gregg Larkin
JDE System Administrator (CNC) / North America
Praxair, Inc.
 
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