Fusion Apps Delayed? (Con)Fusion?

Market rumours are buzzing and there is widespread speculation. It looks like the news will be acknowledged at Oracle OpenWorld that Fusion Apps will be delayed in delivery through 2009 at the earliest. Oracle has stated publicly that the first Fusion Applications are planned for 2007 and a first phase of Fusion Application Suite is scheduled for 2008. As Vinnie Mirchandani correctly predicted Oracle’s timetable was more of a “moonshot” than a pinpoint-accurate launch window when it was announced in January 2006.

Vinnie also suggested that John Wookey, senior vice president of Oracle’s
Applications Product Strategy and Development, who spearheaded the Oracle Fusion Project team is out. This rumour is now confirmed by Gartner in a note confirming Wookey’s departure.

This latest development adds weight to the suggestion that Oracle will likely admit that Fusion will be delayed at its upcoming Oracle Open World. Although as Joshua Greenbaum observes, Oracle has the option to scale up or down its Fusion Apps. Oracle has never made specific commitments about what Fusion Applications it will deliver and when it will deliver them. According to Joshua it will be difficult for anyone to claim that anything is being delayed: “Without a hard and fast set of specs that it has been publicly developing towards, Oracle can declare Fusion Apps “delivered” on schedule regardless of how much it actually delivers next year.”

The question, reading various comments on the Gartner’s note, is whether Fusion Applications will change from being a full-suite replacement to new co-existing product line. In that case, the path to Fusion Apps will be more of a migration path than an upgrade path. At Oracle OpenWorld we’ll see what is in store for Fusion Apps and whether or not Fusion Middleware will still be the basis of Fusion Apps.

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Posted by: Kasper Kombrink (6 post(s)).