Oracle's missed opportunity

The signs were there all week at Oracle OpenWorld. Just before Larry Ellison delivered his keynote, Bob Wynne of Oracle PR told me "Don't expect any big announcements". The day before ,Chuck Rozwot,  EVP,  danced around a question from the media about details about Fusion applications. Something about "we have briefed analysts under NDA". (BTW - No self-respecting analyst firm signs an NDA for more than a couple of days). He then invoked conservative "revenue recognition" practices as reason Oracle could not disclose more details. On Monday, in his meeting with the Enterprise Irregulars, President Charles Phillips said "don't expect thousands of Fusion applications" any time soon.

Thousands? In the end Larry Ellison showcased 3 "applications" aimed at sales forces. Oh, they reflect glimpses of business process innovation as they facilitate more collaboration across sales teams and leverage social networking to build prospect lists. And, of course they reflect technology currency  - as Larry said multiple times, they use SOA principles and leverage industry standard middleware. But after 3 years of Fusion announcements, just 3 applications? He then proceeded to dance around questions about financial, hr, other applications likely to be released. And there were repeated references to being conservative and glances at his CFO, Safra Catz with a questioning “am I in trouble?” look.

Cute, but over 30 years Larry has made so many product announcements at his events - some way ahead of their time, some outrageous. Suddenly now, he feels the need to be conservative?

Oracle had an opportunity to showcase applications which leverage its growing middleware market share. What better proof point to show its prospects for the middleware? What better way to get its database customers to also push for its applications? In a conference with innovation as a central theme, it could have shown off so much more innovation with home cooking.

It was a 30 year birthday celebration for Oracle and there were plenty of thank yous all the way around during the conference. But if I was an Oracle, PeopleSoft, JDE or Siebel application customer I would feel underwhelmed, even slighted. In the 3 years since Fusion has been announced they have paid Oracle over $ 10 billion in maintenance. Surely, 5 to 10% of that should have gone towards Fusion applications. Where are the results?

During the Q&A, someone from the audience tried to ask Larry about Oracle’s charitable initiatives. He made the mistake of invoking Microsoft and the Gates foundation. Larry cut him off and honed in on what the Gates foundation does or does not do. Never got around to discussing Oracle’s own charities.

I felt the same thing about Larry’s keynote. Oracle, so eager to jump on its competitors sometimes neglects to showcase all the good stuff it is capable of. When it comes to Fusion applications, it blew a major opportunity at this conference.

Comments

[Justin Kestelyn]

Vinnie, the revenue recognition limitations are genuine (and fairly new). In the past 18 months Oracle has become very conservative about attaching new features to a release calendar; these same guidelines were in place for Oracle Database 11g (remember Charles Phillips timing the Windows release as being "soon"?)

[Ric]

Did they miss an opportunity, or just have nothing to say?

[vinnie mirchandani]

Justin, understand but 3 years, lots of customer payments in maintenance later and nothing to show for it...sounds like Visat, SAP's SOA etc...I am lamenting the software industry's track record...the rev recog is red herring to me

Ric, there was plenty of talk about Fusion apps - SOA compliant, using the world's best middleware etc etc but little detail and only the 10 minute demo during Larry's talk

[Omar Tahboub]

I thought that the "Fusion Applications Overview" presentation by Steve Miranda (SVP, Fusion Dev) offered a comprehensive and compelling case for Fusion Apps.

Steve went into a fair level of detail demoing and explaining some of the key aspects of Fusion... such as: embedded intelligence, new security architecture, enhanced user productivity, rich contextual UI, and others.

Unlike Larry's demo, the one by Steve was based on the Fusion HR app (compensation workbench.)

[vinnie mirchandani]

Omar, thanks - I think there were snippets in many sessions - but Oracle knew of the significant interest in the topic, especially with the speculation on schedule with Wookey's leaving. It could have handled the scheduling of release and provided a lot more functional detail. Right now it appears very few Fusion apps are ready. Again, I am talking in the reference of 3 years, hundreds of millions of dollars - there should be lots more.

[Kannan Tarakad]

Vinnie,

The fact is that Oracle has a number of product lines, each goading for its place at Open world. There were a number of key initiatives, particularly the AIA initiative, which to me, sounded like the best bang for the maintenance dollars that customers are paying Oracle. Yeah it is not called fusion, but, AIA is very relevant to what Oracle is doing for integrating all its acquisitions, is it not?
Remember, Larry has accelerated the fusion schedule. He also said that there will be fusion applications will start arriving at a steady rate, starting in 2008.
I think that Fusion and the AIA initiatives are Oracle's answers for dealing with the integrations. Viewed together, they do appear to be addressing an integrated suite that deals with acquisitions. Thoughts?
Kannan

[vinnie mirchandani]

Kannan, AIA exposes various Oracle, PS, Siebel etc apps to common XML libraries - progress from an integration perspective, but no impact on core apps...either process innovation (some in Oracle 12, PS 9 - but not a whole lot) or underlying SOA or other tech innovation. Again, Oracle promised this 3 years ago and customers have paid as I estimate over $ 10 b in maintenance since. Not unreasonable to expect a lot more...

[Floyd]

Vinnie,

I suspect that Oracle could have said quite a bit more about Fusion Apps but, due to the reshuffling around John Wookey's departure, opted against sharing too much until the new team has an opportunity to figure things out. Missed opportunity? Probably, but there will be others...like Collaborate 08.

[vinnie mirchandani]

Floyd it was good to meet you. As a user it is wonderful you are still patient even after 3 years of promises...hope Oracle is nice back to customers like you...