If you or a business colleague want to know more about Oracle’s plans for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, I would encourage you to attend an important webcast on December 3. The title of the webcast is “Is JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Right for Your Business?” It will feature a talk by Lenley Hensarling, Oracle’s Group Vice President and General Manager for JD Edwards.
Before Hensarling speaks, I will kick off the webcast with our company’s assessment of EnterpriseOne and Oracle’s strategy for the product. I’m also inviting Wayne Travis, one of our senior project managers, to discuss his latest deployment of EnterpriseOne at a Fortune 100 company. While we have the microphone, we will tell listeners how they can get a free copy of our book on effectively managing IT projects. Speaking of freebies, everyone who attends the webcast will receive a complimentary copy of our widely read white paper, “The Transformation of JD Edwards Applications.”
This a great opportunity to learn more about EnterpriseOne and pose questions to the experts about where the product is heading. So don’t wait…sign up today.
Take our survey at the end of this article!
I’ve been poring over the latest studies of information technology spending from the big research firms and, while I hate to say it, the numbers are looking increasingly ugly. For weeks, analysts have been slashing their forecasts faster than Wal-Mart’s “smiley face” can slap lower prices on underwear and cheap TVs.
Take Gartner Group, for instance. Earlier this year, the Connecticut-based firm forecasted that 2009 IT spending would increase by 5.8 percent over 2008 levels. In October, the company lowered that figure to 2.3 percent. Last week, Gartner confessed that its 2009 forecast now hovers between 0 and 2.3 percent. It also said that if recession strikes the major economies hard, spending could go into reverse and shrink by up to 2.5 percent.
By contrast, International Data Corporation (IDC) is a little more optimistic, if a meager 2.6 percent growth rate could be called good news. The bad news is that IDC expects 2009 spending to grow by less than 1 percent in the developed parts of the world, with most of the forecasted increase coming from developing countries.
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John Wookey now works for Oracle's archrival SAP
Last night, rumors began spreading that John Wookey, the former head of applications development at Oracle, has accepted a new post at Oracle archrival SAP. Today, SAP confirmed the news. Wookey, who left Oracle 13 months ago for reasons that the company has never disclosed, is now Executive Vice President of Large Enterprise On Demand at SAP. In his new position, Wookey will play a critical role in crafting the software as a service (SaaS) capabilities of SAP’s flagship products. That, by extension, will affect how SAP competes with Oracle for enterprise accounts.
According to an SAP spokesman, Wookey began work at the German software giant this Monday. He is reporting to Jim Hagemann Snabe, a member of the company’s executive board who is responsible for development of its SAP Business Suite applications and NetWeaver middleware products. In a statement issued today, SAP said that “Wookey will work with several of our large enterprise on-demand solution offerings (including SAP CRM on-demand solutions) and develop more relevant on-demand offerings. It is our aim to unite these offerings with a singular strategy for increased innovation and enhancement under Wookey’s leadership.”
As this quote indicates, SAP intends to get much more serious about creating a compelling SaaS strategy for large enterprises over the next several years. Does this mean that SAP will unveil a comprehensive hosted product for enterprises similar to its Business ByDesign for mid-sized companies? I sincerely doubt it, as the scope and complexity of such a product would make it ill suited for delivery via a 100% SaaS model. What is more likely is that SAP will, over time, move Business Suite to a hybrid “software plus services” model in which new capabilities are delivered via the Internet cloud. This model, which is similar to the one that SAP ally Microsoft is pursuing, could make it easier for Business Suite users to deploy new functionality.
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Back in September, Oracle used its OpenWorld user conference to pledge that it would deliver more training via the web and other virtual channels. Over the last several weeks, the software giant has begun to deliver on its promise. New training resources are coming on line that will make it easier and less expensive to get up to speed on JD Edwards products. That’s welcome news in these tough economic times.
If you have ever traveled hundreds of miles to attend an Oracle University workshop, you know that such training can burn a hole in the pockets of your corporate budget. Acknowledging this problem, Oracle University used OpenWorld to announce a new Live Virtual Class format. In this format, instructors teach the same content provided in off-site workshops, but do so over the web. Participants are able to ask questions, get answers, and perform exercises in much the same way as they would in a traditional classroom. The Live Virtual format lets JD Edwards professionals enhance their skills no matter where they may live, eliminate expensive travel, and minimize productivity losses.
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