It has been a slow month for news coming out of Oracle. That’s typical in the days leading up to OpenWorld, as the software giant starts stockpiling announcements that it can unleash on conference goers. Still, some interesting tidbits have leaked out of the company in recent weeks. Here is a quick rundown on what we have been following.

Hot Papers on the Next EnterpriseOne Releases

Earlier this week, Oracle quietly posted two papers about JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0 and EnterpriseOne Tools 8.98 on its Customer Connection web site. The documents, known as Release Value Propositions, provide detailed information about the enhancements in these unannounced releases. If your organization intends to evaluate either release, these documents are excellent starting points for your review. Just click on the above link, enter your Customer Connection login/password, and look for the two documents at the top of the page.

BEA Joins the JDeveloper Camp

Back in July, we reported that Oracle intended to repackage BEA Workshop (BEA’s integrated development platform) so that it could run on the Eclipse platform as an add-on tool to Oracle JDeveloper. Earlier this month, the vendor delivered on its promise by announcing Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse. The new offering is a free download, so it’s a “must give it a spin” widget for anyone who uses BEA Workshop in Oracle environments.

Oracle Unveils CRM Connection

In the closing days of August, Oracle announced a packaged integration between its Siebel CRM and CRM On Demand products. The integration, which links the on-premises Siebel CRM to the hosted On Demand offering, uses Oracle’s Application Integration Architecture to join the two packages at the hip.

I do not think that the new packaged integration will be a “make or break” factor in many sales of either product. However, it could help firms that have deployed both products (such as Siebel CRM at headquarters and CRM On Demand in the field) to synch up their data and integrate sales, service, and support functions. For more information on the offering, head over to the Oracle CRM On Demand site.

We Goofed!

When we broke the news to you about Oracle adjusting prices for JD Edwards applications this summer, we said, “It appears that Enterprise prices for most World products rose in the U.S. and U.K., though we are still trying to confirm this.” Since then, we have confirmed that we were wrong on this point. Oracle did not increase Enterprise license prices for World back in June. What it did do was make adjustments to World prices back in August 2007. According to sources inside Oracle, the adjustments were made to bring World prices into parity with those for similar applications in Oracle’s other product lines. Some of these adjustments increased World license prices while others reduced them. We apologize if our statement misled anyone.

A New Business Intelligence Offering

Finally, I would like to announce a new service we are offering at Andrews Consulting Group. As you may know, our RapidDecision division offers the leading independent data warehousing and business intelligence (BI) solution for JD Edwards customers. This month, we are adding a new BI Management Consulting service for corporate executives that will focus on:

  • Developing a business case for BI
  • Executive workshops on BI planning, report management, and dashboard management
  • Implementing “industry standard” metrics
  • Implementing advanced applications such as customer and product profitability, inventory projections, predictive analysis, and performance management

If you or your executive team needs help in defining the role of BI in your company, our new offering could help you. Send an email to info@rapiddecision.net to request more information.

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