News from Quest Conference

gregglarkin

gregglarkin

Legendary Poster
OK, I know they don't call it the Quest conference anymore, but I'm old school. I'll start this thread to pass on the news from the conference.
 
Here is the first major announcement, it's a doozy, especially for World shops:

Oracle Indefinitely Extends the Life of JDE World, EnterpriseOne

Published: April 24, 2006

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The users of the World and EnterpriseOne ERP software suites from the former J.D. Edwards will probably breathe a sigh of relief this week, and so will the top brass at IBM's System i division. The reason why is that Charles Phillips, Oracle's president, and Mark Shearer, general manager of the System i business, will announce that Oracle will now support and enhance the JDE World and EnterpriseOne suites indefinitely--no strings, no gimmicks, no tricks.

Oracle and IBM will be making the announcement at the Collaborate 06 user group meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. Collaborate is a joint event hosted by the Independent Oracle Users Group, the Oracle Applications Users Group, and the Quest International Users Group, the latter being the user group for companies using JDE and PeopleSoft suites. The announcement that the JDE applications will be given their own future, distinct from the converged "Project Fusion" ERP suite that Oracle is currently creating using Java and which is expected to be finished around 2008 or so, is welcome news on a lot of different levels.

Since the early days of the minicomputer, there have been a number of midrange cultures that did not mix all too well. The users of IBM's System/3X and AS/400 lines of midrange machines thought themselves superior to those using Digital Equipment's VAX systems, and about the only thing these two camps had in common was disdain for the Unix platform and its darling, the Oracle database. So it probably comes as no surprise to anyone that the JDE application customer base doesn't necessarily feel all that comfortable with Oracle being the owner and steward of the applications they chose.

Oracle has, undoubtedly at the nudging of IBM, finally come to the conclusion that the 6,500-company JDE World and JDE EnterpriseOne customer base cannot and will not be shoehorned into the Java-based Fusion application, Fusion middleware, and Oracle 10g database stack that the company is building for users of its Oracle E-Business Suite and PeopleSoft Enterprise applications. PeopleSoft customers, who by and large deployed their software on Windows or Unix platforms, simply cared less about making a jump in technology because they were never tied to a particular technology.

Part of the reason for this is that PeopleSoft was founded in 1987, not in 1977 like the former J.D. Edwards was. When JDE was formed, the System/3X line of minicomputers was the most advanced technology on the market and RPG was one of the two dominant business application programming languages; by the time PeopleSoft came along, Unix was just starting to go commercial and server-grade Windows was only seven years away. PeopleSoft made a stab at porting to the AS/400 in the late 1990s, but killed off the project. JDE went in the opposite direction, taking its WorldSoftware suite, which was written in RPG, and converting it to a mix of C++, Java, and homegrown toolset code so it could run on OS/400, Unix, and Windows. The idea was to have JDE expand into the new Unix and Windows markets, and thereby compete with the likes of Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP. But, after all that effort, the JDE installed base is still dominated by the OS/400 platform, with about 81 percent of the combined 6,500-strong installed base of companies deployed on an OS/400 platform.

As I explained two weeks ago, Oracle and IBM have started the process of rebuilding a JDE sales and reseller channel, and seem committed to push the JDE software--even the RPG-based World suite--into new customer accounts. With today's announcement, it now becomes clear why Oracle and IBM would bother. When it closed the PeopleSoft acquisition in January 2005, Oracle said it would support the PeopleSoft and JDE suites at least until 2013, and by support it meant provide security patches, necessary updates, as well as product releases to improve the functionality of these ERP suites. That 2013 date might seem far away, but it seems pretty close when you consider that it can take years to move applications. Moreover, the jump from PeopleSoft Enterprise applications to Project Fusion applications might only mean changing applications while continuing to have the same database, operating system, and server platform. Jumping from JDE World or EnterpriseOne to Project Fusion would mean changing everything: applications, database, operating system, and server. Just knowing that they were facing a move like that made companies do two things: get nervous and stop investing in their software. When you want to sell application software, having 6,500 deer in the headlights for several years (First the PeopleSoft acquisition, then the Oracle hostile takeover) is a bad thing.

Good sense has prevailed at Oracle, and the company has correctly decided that the best thing to do with these JDE shops is to let them have their applications and the platforms they choose to run them on. "Our customers want to see these products around for many years to come," says John Schiff, vice president and general manager of the World suite at Oracle. "We've all come to the realization that this is the right thing to do. This is welcome news to our installed base, and to customers in the SMB space that are considering World and EnterpriseOne. Having the 2013 date out there made people concerned." So now, the sun is not going to set on the JDE suites--at least until Oracle changes its mind again.

The un-sunsetting of JDE World and EnterpriseOne is certainly good news for IBM, which as I explained last week, generates about one-eighth of its iSeries-System i sales out of the JDE application portfolio. The installed base of companies that use JDE software may only make up about 3 percent of the AS/400-iSeries-System i installed base, but it makes up about 13 percent of sales. (For all we know, the confusion and uncertainty in the JDE installed base is one of the major factors in the decline of iSeries sales in the past two years, and if I had to guess, that is what I would guess.)

What Oracle and IBM want to do now is get the World and EnterpriseOne installed bases buying upgrades again. Schiff says that a large portion of the 4,000-strong World base is running on the World A7.3 and A8.1 releases. The upcoming World A9.1 release, which is coming in late 2006 or early 2007, is written in a mixture of various RPGs, but according to Schiff, new functions are being implemented in RPG IV. And every screen in the World suite has long-since been Web-enabled through an embedded screen-scraper that JDE got through a partnership with Seagull Software many years ago. World customers can use Web or green screens. The World A9.1 release will have enhancements for PC integration, the capability to support multinational address formats, integrated email features, various extensions for SOX and other regulatory requirements. The release will also include service oriented architecture (SOA) extensions such that the World suite will be able to plug into so-called Enterprise Service Buses (ESBs) using XML interfaces. The World suite will support WebSphere middleware on the System i platform as well as the Oracle Fusion middleware and application servers running in a Linux or AIX logical partition or on a Windows or Linux server attached through Integrated xSeries Adapters or built using the Integrated xSeries Server co-processor.

Schiff also says that the EnterpriseOne suite will be upgraded this week with the promised 8.12 release, and Oracle will announce plans to put out a future 9.0 release. Not being in charge of the EnterpriseOne product line, Schiff could not say what features will be in this release, but we will chase it down in our Four Hundred Stuff newsletter.

By reinvigorating the JDE product lines, Oracle has very cleverly sidestepped a very thorny issue with the JDE installed base: support of i5/OS, DB2/400, and possibly RPG with the future Project Fusion application suite. I have been saying there is an ever-so-remote chance that Oracle might implement Fusion in RPG IV--and when I said remote, I meant like me winning PowerBall and I don't even gamble--but Schiff says just forget that. "Fusion will not be implemented in RPG. It will be written in Java," he says. As for DB2/400 and i5/OS, Schiff says that no decision has, as yet, been made with regards to the Fusion application suite. By extending the life of JDE World and JDE EnterpriseOne, Oracle can say that it is supporting the iSeries. The issue will become how much functionality gets put into World and EnterpriseOne, and how the functionality gap between these suites and the future Fusion suite opens up. At some point, if the functionality gap gets too large, customers who want the most advanced software from Oracle will have to move to Fusion, and that will mean they will have to drop the JDE suites and probably the iSeries, too. But, if Oracle truly does enhance World and EnterpriseOne, then that day may never come at all.

here is the source for the blurb: http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh042406-story02.html
 
Of course, until SAP buys IBM and puts an end to the Oracle/IBM partnership!
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Re: News from Quest Conference - scoop information included!!

Here's my next installment:

Roadmap & Overview

Strategy – protect your existing investment
- extend the value of your application
- evolve you to the next generation

New Lifetime support policy

At least 2013
Xe/erp 8 through 2013
All others 5 years from GA
6th year tax & regulatory
8.11 extended support available
continuing currently supported hardware platforms, databases and operating systems for XE

Windows Vista will be supported for XE, Websphere 6.0 will be supported

Adding business improvements, continuously rolled out
continued investment, extended business value, technology improvements to lower TCO

Release 8.9 350 + improvements – 1 new product
Release 8.10 140 + improvements – 6 new products
Release 8.11 250 + improvements – 7 new products

Upgrade value proposition – XE to 8.11 SP1 – document that tells you everything that has changed since XE, document to give you a business reason to upgrade – available on customer connection website.

Roadmap –

8.12 will be released shortly, includes:

- Operational sourcing – collaborate with suppliers, online bidding – new module
- Human Capital Management
- Food and beverage industry initiatives, improvements for wine growers
- Automotive industry initiatives –
- Distribution Industry Initiative, effective pricing strategies, faster Sales Order Entry, more flexibility

Platform independent meta data – enterprise server and web server share the same set of specs in the database – web generation and enterprise code happens at the same time during the package build
Can add in charting to an application, use FDA to add in pie, line charts, etc.

Version 9.0 is scheduled for release in 2008. Will include a lot of order to cash enhancements

Tools – in 2007, tool release 8.96 will include support for HP/UX itanium, SQL server 2005, 64 bit oracle DB

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Here's the scoop - There will be a major press release and announcement at the conference tomorrow that there will indefinite support and enhancements for E1 on the Intel / SQL platforms as well as the OS400 platforms. A quote from an Oracle executive “As long as there is a customer base for E1, Oracle will support and enhance the product.”
 
Press release from Oracle.....

Oracle Press Release http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/2006_apr/jde-8-12.html

Oracle Announces New Release of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
Oracle Adds Operational Sourcing Functionality; Delivers Three New Modules For the Food and Beverage Industry


NASHVILLE, Tenn., Collaborate 06 User Group Conference 24-APR-2006 Furthering its commitment to extend and evolve Oracle's JD Edwards products and protect current customer investments, Oracle today announced the availability of a new release of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, 8.12. This latest release offers new modules and enhanced features to address the needs of a broad base of EnterpriseOne customers as well as functionality specifically targeted for the food and beverage market. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, 8.12 is also certified on Oracle(r) Fusion Middleware.
Optimizing relationships with suppliers to help ensure the best quality and price for goods and services can help companies lower operating costs. A new module, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Operational Sourcing, helps automate the process of obtaining and awarding bids after a Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for Information (RFI) is issued. Fully integrated with all the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Supply Management solutions, the addition of operational sourcing functionality means companies can efficiently manage all phases of the supplier lifecycle, from critical sourcing decisions to supplier payments.

Several other new features across the suite of applications provide new and existing JD Edwards EnterpriseOne customers with the ability to stay competitive, take advantage of new market opportunities and increase business efficiencies. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Human Capital Management now includes employee scheduling, enhanced time and labor and self-service capabilities. Further, customer relationship management applications delivered in the previous release of EnterpriseOne have been enhanced to drive greater visibility into customer service operations. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Supply Chain Management adds transportation shipment sequencing, which enables OEM suppliers to deliver to manufacturing production lines in the exact sequence in which the parts are required. In addition, the Fixed Asset Management module has been enhanced to facilitate today's complex accounting and regulatory requirements.

"Small and midsize businesses need comprehensive, affordable and flexible solutions to automate processes and drive profitable operations," said Gartner Research Director Billy Maynard. "There continues to be strong demand among SMBs for enhanced capabilities around core Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) that help customers reduce operating costs and increase business effectiveness."

The 8.12 release helps lower the total cost of ownership by simplifying the deployment and management activities of a JD Edwards EnterpriseOne implementation. By adopting the standards-based XML format for application specifications - also referred to as metadata - key processes such as package builds and deployment are simplified.

Industry-Specific Solution for Food and Beverage Producers
Oracle industry solutions are based on a wealth of industry experience and are tailored to address the unique challenges and processes that drive those businesses. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne is the first enterprise ERP solution with specific functionality for the food and beverage producers industry. The comprehensive package of pre-integrated software, hardware and services enables food and beverage producers to automate business processes and gain the visibility to information needed to operate efficiently and deliver high quality products to customers. Three new modules - JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Blend Management, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Grower Management and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Grower Pricing and Payments - were designed in collaboration with customers to help provide the ability for food and beverage producers to manage processes and the manufacturing of blended products. Oracle worked closely with CIBER, a leading systems integrator for the food and beverage industry, on product requirements and functional specifications for these new modules.

"We're very excited about the new features in Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12 package," said Vice President of CIBER's Oracle Practice Mike Dillon. "CIBER has been working with businesses in the food and beverage industry for more than ten years, and we've written similar custom functionality for our customers during that time. Oracle's new software will be the only top tier ERP package today with this type of functionality built into the base product. This will provide our customers the best of both worlds-a top tier ERP solution with vertical specialization to meet their unique needs."

Global beverage company, Foster's Group, has been involved with the development of these food and beverage modules since design and development began with JD Edwards.

"We've had a long relationship with JD Edwards and we're gratified to see the commitment that Oracle has shown for the JD Edwards products through the transition," said Foster's CIO, Ian Farnsworth. "Once fully implemented, the three new modules should deliver to Foster's the ability to integrate wine production from grapevine to bottle in a single ERP environment."

EnterpriseOne Path to Oracle Fusion
JD Edwards EnterpriseOne customers now have an option to take advantage of the Oracle Technology Foundation - a tightly integrated and complete infrastructure based on the industry-leading Oracle Database and Oracle Fusion Middleware. With JD Edwards EnterpriseOne certification on Oracle Fusion Middleware, organizations can use components such as Oracle Containers for J2EE, Oracle BPEL Process Manager, Oracle Identity Management and Oracle Portal, to support their entire enterprise including business applications, custom applications and standards-based enterprise services. Adopting Oracle Fusion technologies today helps companies gradually move towards future technologies at their own pace, absorbing changes in a manner that is manageable and without disruption.

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne allows customers to choose to leverage the tools, database and middleware from Oracle or continue with current investments from partner vendors. The new version includes support for the current and next releases of platforms, such as IBM WebSphere 6.0, IBM Portal 5.1, Sun Solaris Unix 10, Redhat Linux 3.0 and i5/OS V5R4.
 
Here are my Blog notes from the Charles Phillips (Oracle CEO) keynote presentation:

Tuesday Morning – Charles Philips, Oracle CEO keynote speech

Customers want:

More visibility
More choice
More value
More time – don’t want to be forced to upgrade

Announcing today - Applications Unlimited

• Continual product releases
• Customer driven product roadmaps
• Dedicated development teams
• No forced upgrades – not forcing you to upgrade on their schedule
• No pressure to move to Fusion

There is no “one size fits all” solution – 2006 releasing JDE E1 8.12

JDE E1 8.12

• New operational sourcing product
• New grower business modual
• New plant manager dashboard
• Enhancements to:
Demandflow manufacturing
CRM
HCM & Payrole
• Support for XML publishers

In 2006, Sieble on demand will have integrate to EnterpriseOne

Customers get to decide what product they use and when they want to switch over to Fusion

Working on exposing the modules to web services, stepping stone to Fusion middleware

Commitment to System I - Public commitment to support AS400 forever

Invited Mark Shearer from IBM to speak

Customers want Oracle and IBM to work together

You can move forward in an evolutionary way to implement System I, they will continue to evolve System I hardware

Looking Ahead

Old world

Generic processes
Fragmented processes
Fragmented data
Latent information
Small transaction loads
Proprietary technologies
Forklift upgrades
Post incident support

New World

Industry specific processes
Model driven services
Global data hubs
Real time analytics
Large transactions loads

Building Fusion on Grid computing – future of Oracle and Oracle apps

Pay as you go
Scale up and out
Latest processor
Commodity servers
Distribute peak loads
Maximum flexibility
Centralized management
Policy based management

There is a strong emphasis on Middleware

Oracle in 2010
More secure infrastructure
Built on commodity storage
Standards based application suites
Application leader in key industries
Leader in structured and unstructured data

Q & A session

Q - What is the grand plan behind all of the acquisitions?
A - The software business is about scale – now they have bigger scale in the application space. They are gaining expertise from the various developers from the different applications

Q – will there be a delay in Fusion because of the support of the other apps?
A – no – we are big enough to support the various apps AND develop Fusion
 
Did anyone ask about maintenance fee increases (current and prospective)?
 
the audience has not had a chance to ask a question, so, no, that question has not come up.
 
Aren't you the shop that's going retro back to World and then SAP??!!?? Dude, maint. fees are the very, VERY, LEAST of your worries! If your organization has enough to do not one but two major migrations in two years, the maint. fee bills should be a lunch at McDonalds... comparatively.
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I know, I know, you were just beginning to think that was all a bad dream!
 
http://www.oracle.com/applications/applications-unlimited.html

Applications Unlimited
In addition to providing the best applications, our No. 1 goal is the preservation of your investments. The core of this vision is to evolve the best functionality of products from Oracle, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Siebel and more. “We are giving customers the best of both worlds—more value from their existing applications, which we plan to continuously enhance, and an option to upgrade free of charge to future technologies, if the customer determines there is a business case to do so,” says Oracle President Charles Phillips.
Through acquiring Siebel and PeopleSoft, we’ve demonstrated our commitment to becoming a true technology partner and bringing together the best and the brightest industry talent and state-of-the-art products. Now it’s up to us to show you that we have a definitive plan for customers like you, whether you’re running Oracle E-Business Suite, Siebel, PeopleSoft, or JD Edwards applications.
As part of our lifetime support to our customers, Oracle plans to provide continued enhancements to the current Oracle Applications beyond the delivery of Oracle Fusion Applications in 2008. With “Applications Unlimited,” Oracle is planning to enhance JD Edwards, Oracle, PeopleSoft and Siebel applications on an on-going basis. Oracle is providing more visibility into product roadmaps, and helping customers derive continual success from their current applications by delivering dedicated, world-class development and support for years to come.
Dedicated Development Teams
Our strategy allows you to protect the investments you have made in Oracle Applications. With the recent merger of Siebel and Oracle, we have doubled our customer relationship management development capacity. More developers means more people committed to innovating, listening to customers, and creating the best applications in the marketplace.
Oracle is also working closely with the user communities—including regional user groups (RUGs), product user groups (PUGs), customer advisory boards (CABs), strategy councils (product, industry), and Quest—and with individuals to determine product direction. We have also set up an Oracle Fusion Strategy Council where customers can give feedback directly into the development process. We are also dedicating extensive time to analyzing the enhancement requests filed by customers across all product lines.
Proven Applications for Every Industry, Process, and Geography
We have demonstrated our commitment to industries by making sure that we, along with our partners, are addressing the major industry-influenced technology challenges of our customers. Oracle provides leading solutions for a wide range of industries, including banking, insurance, telecom, life sciences, manufacturing, retail, public sector, high tech, and more. We are also committed to automating and simplifying every business process that powers your business. And lastly, we’re not ignoring the fact that businesses differ from region to region—our global reach means that we’re the best solution to your regional challenges. “Oracle has 30,000 satisfied customers across JD Edwards, Oracle, PeopleSoft, and Siebel applications, and the industry’s strongest portfolio of applications designed to fit every industry and geography for both small and large companies,” says Phillips. “The scale of our applications business allows us to keep investing, and Oracle Fusion Applications will represent another addition—and another architectural choice for customers—in the Oracle Applications family.”
No Forced Upgrades
While Oracle continues to innovate and improve its product offerings, we understand that it is not practical for businesses to get caught in an ongoing cycle of deployments and upgrades. When it comes to choosing the right technology, you want the right partner working with you to ensure long-term success. Our goal is to provide you with an alternative that allows you to dictate your own upgrade schedule.
For instance, continued enhancement of the JD Edwards products combined with Oracle’s Lifetime Support Policy signals our commitment to protecting the investments of JD Edwards customers, allowing them to upgrade, if they choose to, at their own pace. “These next-generation enhancements will leverage the same standards and technologies that are planned for Oracle Fusion Applications, preserving customer investments,” said Senior Vice President of Applications Development John Wookey. “There will be no forced upgrades and customers can count on Oracle’s unique Lifetime Support Policy for their existing applications.”
Get Results With Applications Tailored to Your Business
We know that simply reading about Oracle strategies isn’t enough. That’s why Oracle’s executives are embarking on a series of customer-focused events, including the 1000 Events: Oracle Applications World Tour and Oracle Applications Days. Find out what our executives have to say about getting results with applications that are tailored to fit your business.
 

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Re: News from Quest Conference -

Notes from Quest 2006 (JD Edwards, Oracle, PeopleSoft Convention)

Sunday and Monday

I arrived in Nashville on Saturday night, and spent Sunday with the Wholesale Distribution SIG, Monday morning with the Life Sciences SIG, and Monday afternoon giving a presentation to about 100 clients. And Monday night was the opening evening of the Vendor Showcase. It’s been a busy, productive two days.

JDEtips is not having a booth this year; so if you are looking for me, please contact me on my cell phone at 1.970.210.4112. We’re going to an SAP show this year for the first time, so we’ll be alternating between Quest and the SAP event every year. It’s fun to not have the booth duties and be freer to roam around and see what everyone else is doing.

Speaking of SAP, I was flabbergasted to see that SAP has a booth at this Oracle show. I strolled up and basically asked: “What are you doing here?” The staffer said: “Our client base is responsible for a ton of Oracle Database sales.” OK, but that doesn’t mean Oracle needs SAP’s help to sell Oracle Database to its own clients, does it? Plus they have a display focused on SAP Netweaver—isn’t that their technology stack which is competing directly with Oracle’s technology stack?

Oracle vendor booths outnumber the JD Edwards vendor booths. I estimate that just 25% of the vendors on the floor provide JD Edwards products and services. To an 18-year JD Edwards veteran like myself—it is a strange feeling to be in the minority. Overall, the show seems to have double the customer attendance of last year’s show in Grapevine, Texas.

These conferences are usually the right place for Oracle to make a series of announcements. There was one on Monday about the availability of the 8.12 release of EnterpriseOne. No surprise there. Looks like Grower Management and Operational Sourcing are the biggest new areas of the software.

There’s going to be a big announcement today by Charles Phillips, President of Oracle, that Oracle will support and enhance the World and EnterpriseOne products indefinitely. It’s clear that Oracle and IBM are offering an alternative to keep the many thousands of JD Edwards clients on the iSeries. This means the JD Edwards client base can either go to Fusion (with its apparent lack of support for the iSeries DB/400 database), or stay where they are for many more years. This extends previous announcements to support JD Edwards software until 2013. So that means enhancements and bug fixes will be available well past 2013.

We’ll have to wait a long time to see how this plays out. On the one hand, it’s good for that portion of the JD Edwards customer base, which does not want to be forced to Fusion prematurely. On the other hand, it will tend to marginalize the JD Edwards base, as it is difficult to imagine Oracle putting much development resource into the JD Edwards product line when they are busy designing and coding the Fusion product.

One of the highlights of the show is the opportunity to learn more specifics about new functionality coming in future releases. It’s a treat to hear a long-time JD Edwards veteran like Bob Monahan, in the Distribution product management area at Oracle, present some preliminary design thoughts new Consignment Sales functionality being planned for a future release. Bob always does a great job explaining what the software will do, and asking for audience feedback. This functionality will appeal to the Life Sciences industry as these companies can have hundreds of thousands of consignment sales every year, and a more automated way to handle these transactions is sorely needed. Look for this in a post 8.12 release.

Lots of information is being made available on the new World 9.1 release at the show.

That’s about it for now. Stay tuned for more news soon from Nashville.

Tuesday

The highlight of the show from Tuesday was Charles Phillips’ presentation. Charles is the President of Oracle.

Right out of the gate he announced “Applications Unlimited” for Oracle EBS, Siebel, PeopleSoft and JDE.

This means continued releases, dedicated development teams, and no forced upgrades, for the foreseeable future, well beyond the previous 2013 cutoff.

I’m sure Charles meant no forced upgrades to Fusion, since it’s quite logical to assume that older versions of all product lines will be sunsetted.

In 2006, Oracle will release EBS 12, PeopleSoft 9.0, EnterpriseOne 8.12, and World A9.1.

Charles did not back off any previously announced Fusion dates.

The reasons given for this announcement were mainly that they wanted customers to not worry about being forced to go to Fusion on Oracle’s schedule, but rather on the customer’s schedule. So Oracle looks great, for doing something they had to do.

Another big reason was to keep the JD Edwards iSeries customers happy. More on that in a moment.

Charles next went into a discussion of the major enhancements in the 8.12 release of EnterpriseOne. These include Operational Sourcing, Grower Management and Plant Manger’s Dashboard. Other areas with enhancements include: Demand Flow Manufacturing, CRM, HCM & Payroll, and support for XML Publisher.

The A9.1 Documentation will be a rewrite—Charles pointed out that the A7.3/A8.1 material is about 10 years old. They’ve outsourced this work to a well-respected documentation firm.

In other related news, Charles said that Siebel’s CRM on Demand service will interface to E1 in 2006. But the integration between Siebel (not on Demand) and E1 will take longer.

Back to the iSeries. Mark Shearer, General Manager for System I at IBM, popped out on stage in the middle of Charles’ presentation. He didn’t really say anything about Fusion on the iSeries, but he assured everyone that IBM and Oracle are very interested in protecting customers’ investments in the iSeries. Mark said that IBM would ensure that the iSeries and/or it’s successor platforms were compatible and basically supported forever.

It was obvious to me that stemming the flow out the door of JD Edwards customers on the iSeries was a big reason to extend support for JD Edwards indefinitely. That buys Oracle some time to respond to the growing demand for Fusion on the iSeries.

Charles then went ahead and responded to the big SAP campaign about how “Companies that run SAP are 35% more profitable.” Charles said “Companies that run Oracle are 40% more profitable and have 75% greater ROI.” So it’s obvious that if you are not on either Oracle or SAP, you should first convert to SAP, and then convert to Oracle. Then you’ll achieve a compound profitability increase of 89%.

A big part of Charles’ presentation was the emphasis on “Standards Based” Archictecture. Of course that provided plenty of opportunity to criticize SAP’s Netweaver platform as being proprietary, and hopelessly wrong.

Plan now for Quest 2007. It will be in Las Vegas on April 15-17, 2007.

Finally, I’ve heard that the highlight of the vendor showcase is the “Wedding Chapel” booth. Apparently an attractive female model is being married every 30 minutes to the attractive male model. No one knows what this has to do with the vendor’s product, or even who the vendor is, but apparently it is riveting stuff. It’s amazing how many guys are so interested in the inner workings of wedding ceremonies. I’ll do some further research today and report back in tomorrow.

Andy Klee
www.JDEtips.com
 
Is anyone at Quest taking detailed notes on the enhancements being announced? I've got some good notes on the future Consignment Sales module, which will be released post 8.12. If you would like to share your notes, I'll be glad to organize them and post the whole thing on JDElist as a download.

Andy Klee
www.JDEtips.com
 
RE: News from Quest Conference -

Did they mention anything about retrofitting ERP 8.0 with enhancements and new functionalities introduced in subsequent releases? Do they have a list of these new enhancements?
 
Re: RE: News from Quest Conference -

[ QUOTE ]
Did they mention anything about retrofitting ERP 8.0 with enhancements and new functionalities introduced in subsequent releases? Do they have a list of these new enhancements?<br><br>

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope - if you want the new stuff, you'll need to upgrade to a newer release. The significant difference is that we are not being forced to convert over to Fusion.

In my opinion - Converting to Fusion, from ANY version of JDE, will be the equivilient of throwing everything out and starting over again. The only stuff that will move over is your data, and that stuff will need to be tweaked to fit the new model.

In answer to your second question, take a look on the knowledge jungle for "Upgrade value proposition – XE to 8.11 SP1" a document that tells you everything that has changed since XE, document to give you a business reason to upgrade.

Gregg Larkin
JDE System Administrator (CNC) / North America
Praxair, Inc.
 
My last words on this topic.....

From a feature/function perspective, the most interesting enhancement that I saw was in the sales order entry arena. In 8.11, they greatly improved the sales order entry process. There is now an embeded CRM modual. They demoed entering a lead, turning that into a quote, turning that into an order. The screens were very logically laid out and they took much of the complexity out of P4210. P4210 still exists, but now they have some new apps that feed into those tables that are much more user friendly.

Gregg Larkin
 
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