General OpenWorld News

The Buzz at Oracle OpenWorld 2009

Impressions from Oracle’s annual get-together: Ellison disses IBM; Where are Fusion Apps?; Charles and Safra on Red Stack integration. At Oracle OpenWorld, Sunday was all about the partner ecosystem—some some 21,000 strong—and Larry Ellison’s trashing of IBM up and down on the main stage of the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Ellison, with the comedic assistance of Sun Microsystems chairman Scott McNealy, was in full-out attack mode, going after his new target: IBM. “We’re looking forward to competing with IBM in the systems [business],” said the Oracle CEO, “and we think the combination of Sun and Oracle [is] well-equipped to compete successfully against the giant.” (That’s the lite version of his comments.)

Never one to shy away from the dramatics or fact-challenged hyperbole, Ellison boasted that Oracle would give $10 million to any enterprise whose existing database application would not run at least twice as fast as on Sun gear. (Can’t wait to see what happens when an enterprise calls him on this.)
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General OpenWorld News

Oracle expects 35,000-plus for OpenWorld

Oracle is beckoning tens of thousands of business partners and customers to its OpenWorld conference at Moscone Center this week, promising to answer a host of business software questions. It’s a tall order for the Redwood City software giant. Questions abound concerning how Oracle will integrate Sun Microsystems, when it will roll out its much anticipated Fusion Applications Suite, how it will expand its cloud services and how it will help customers weather tough economic times.

Oracle Vice President of Corporate Marketing Tania Weidick said 35,000 to 40,000 people are expected this year, potentially a 10 percent drop from the 40,000 that attended last year’s convention. She said the economy has played a role in paring the number of registrations, but that walk-ups could increase the numbers. Oracle continues to use every inch of convention space available, including 300,000 square feet of show floor. It has also expanded the number of sessions to almost 2,000 events, about a 10 percent increase over last year.

Read this article about Fusion Applications.

Oracle Customers About To Begin Testing Fusion Apps

Interesting is that Thomas Kurian is still saying Fusion Apps will be the best of all current apps: “Kurian said Oracle has stayed consistent with its plan, and built applications — including financial apps, human resources, supply change management, procurement, and human capital management — that combine the best functionality from the many applications it now sells, including JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, and its own Oracle E-Business Suite.”

I have been reading through the PeopleSoft Financials 9.1 prerelease notes. Check out my summary of the 9.1 new features and enhancements.

General

• VAT Enhancements: VAT Registration ID has been increased to 20 characters.
• Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA): PeopleSoft plans to support the new requirements for SEPA.

Cross Pillar Enhancements

• Chartfield security: Enable or disable ChartField Security by product and control access for up to two ChartFields for specific high-exposure entry functions and most inquiry functions.

I’m looking forward to the new release of Oracle PeopleSoft. First of all Oracle will release PeopleTools 8.50. Exiting new features (see http://bloggingaboutoracleapplications.org/peopletools-850-the-wow-effect/) will be added to PeopleSoft. At the same time Oracle will release PeopleSoft Applications 9.1 (HR/Financials/CRM).

When will this become available? Oracle will provide a sneak preview of PeopleSoft Financials 9.1 at Oracle Open World 2009 and on the internet it is circulating that PeopleTools will become available this month (http://psst0101.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/peopletools-8-50-update/).

I expect that the new versions will become available before the end of this year (Oracle’s Q2-2010 fiscal year). The pre-release notes are out so it couldn’t take that long.

Let’s wait and see…