I am taking a calculated risk they will not announce much of impact when it comes to applications. As a longtime innovation observer, I continue to believe differentiation comes from unique business processes and applications. Both companies continue to be influential in IT infrastructure areas, but when it comes to enterprise applications, I am not sure they have the imagination to guide customers and clients through changes resulting from COVID, climate, Ukraine and other shocks of the last few years.
It is a world of servitization and other outcome based business models, one of dramatically different capital markets, one where the auto sector has evolved from a hardware/engineering culture to a software centric culture, one where companies are more focused on low carbon in operational infrastructure areas, not as much IT.
McKinsey recently wrote that during COVID “companies realized they were capable of moving faster than they ever thought possible. They went digital in a matter of days, not years. They offered new services almost overnight. If companies sustain this newfound speed and agility, it’s conceivable that more innovation will happen in the next ten years than in any previous decade in modern history.’
I am not convinced either organization will play more than a tactical role helping enterprises through that innovation cycle.
In wrote in 2019, Oracle: Gen 2 Cloud, but Gen 1 applications
“History has shown wave after wave of Oracle applications do fine, but never get to dominant market share, and Oracle ends up catching up with acquisitions. That's partly because they don't benchmark their features and functions against world class customer needs. Could their manufacturing software run the BMW plant in Greer, SC with its massive amounts of automation - robotics and sensors? Could their warehousing functionality run an Amazon fulfillment center which utilizes concepts such as "chaotic storage"? Can their supply chain run last-mile and same-day delivery concepts being tried out in retail, grocery and other distribution markets? Can their applications run a world class 'operating room of the future" for a healthcare company? Could a MNC customer looking for a global 2 tier ERP strategy count on NetSuite to support it in Indonesia, Brazil and Poland?”
That was in 2019! Think of how more industries have changed with COVID and other shocks since then
I also wrote
“I have followed Oracle for three decades and even when talking applications, Larry emphasizes what at Gartner we called "speeds and feeds". So, buy Oracle apps "because we use native stored procedures, we have a thin client architecture" etc. The reality has always been that customers buy applications based on functionality and economics as much as architecture and tools. However, he continues to mostly emphasize the technology not what the business user needs. Yesterday it was about using the autonomous database, multi-tenancy in the cloud and machine learning.”
In the content home page for the conference this week, they don’t highlight ANY vertical applications. A search for Cerner in catalog of 1270 sessions did not yield any results, though I did find a keynote on Healthcare.
What about Gartner?
When I was there (from 1995 to 2000), I felt Gartner was much closer to application buying centers. I wrote (back in 2013) a post called “Category Killers” about how we coped with emerging niches in the enterprise.
Gartner continues to talk at a much higher level of abstraction, especially via Magic Quadrants. Vendors follow those closely, but in reality very few companies buy the complete range of ERP or CRM capabilities at one go. The unit of consumption has become much more granular.
And if you look at the list of their MQs here you see how many application and industry focused ones (like for financial close and P&C insurance ones) have been “retired”.
Like Oracle, Gartner is much stronger at IT infrastructure coverage areas, not at business process or emerging application areas. Companies prune SKUs and narrow their focus all the time, so nothing wrong with the approach both Gartner and Oracle have adopted, but to me innovation and differentiation comes via operational applications and business processes
If you are at either event and see a marked change from what I am describing, please send me a note. I will invite both to present in my Analyst Cam or Burning Platform episodes. In the 500+ episodes I have recorded in the last 3 years, neither has presented. Only fair I give them an opportunity to update my perception.
