Author: Debra Lilley, ACE Director, EMEA
As I typed that
title I cringed. I have been an advocate for
Oracle’s development of Next Generation Applications from the day
they announced Fusion, and I hated the term quickly coined by pessimists
of 'Fusion – Confusion'. But now as Oracle drops the name
Fusion, for its applications, I feel there really is some confusion, so I
am going to use this post to clarify to this community.
Why am I writing this post for this blog? Well the problem is Oracle knows it has renamed the products, but their customers don’t. If you are attending COLLABORATE in April the stream is called Fusion Applications, and if it wasn’t the number of attendees would be very small, but more and more you need to recognise the Cloud brand. The components of Cloud that Oracle developed in their technology (okay, Fusion applications), are 100% written on Oracle Fusion Middleware, that hasn’t gone anywhere and continues to be developed, and it is the use of these Oracle Fusion Middleware technologies that Oracle AppAdvantage is all about - extending the capabilities of "Fusion" Applications with Oracle Fusion Middleware. My starting position and reason I became involved with this AppAdvantage initiative is that there is no better shop window for what Oracle Fusion Middleware can do than the applications that Oracle has developed itself.
I did try an
explanation on my own blog after Oracle Open World but this time I will be more succinct.
FACT : All Fusion Applications are now Cloud Applications.
Each pillar is now renamed Oracle …. Cloud , so Fusion Financials is now part of Oracle ERP Cloud, within each pillar there are the separate offerings which are normally desecrate process areas and with discrete pricing.
FACT : Not all Cloud Applications started Life as Fusion Applications.
As part of their Cloud journey, Oracle has acquired some native cloud-delivered applications, such as Taleo and RightNow. The plan, being executed is that these products are being unified, i.e. integrated with other offerings, where possible being delivered on the same technology stack and being given the same User Experience as Oracle’s home grown offerings.
RightNow has for some time been known as Oracle Service Cloud and the recruiting module from Taleo as Oracle Recruiting Cloud
FACT: Cloud Applications don’t have to be SaaS
Software as a Service is the deployment of an application in a cloud environment. Oracle, or a third party in some cases, hosts the application and look after not only the infrastructure but the patching and security, and in turn you pay a subscription to use charge.
Most of these same applications could be deployed on-premise with you being responsible for all the above and with the more traditional upfront licence costs.
Oracle have called the products Cloud because they are available and are being deployed as such more and more that way.
FACT : Oracle are trying to make it easy for you to find this all in one place.
This is a great place to start: https://cloud.oracle.com/home. The Applications tab goes through the offerings and you can find the PaaS offerings to extend and strengthen your SaaS.
About the Author:
Debra Lilley, VP Certus Cloud Services, Fusion Champion, UKOUG Board Member, Fusion User Experience Advocate and ACE Director.
Lilley has 18 years experience
with Oracle Applications, with E Business Suite since 9.4.1, moving to Business
Intelligence Team Lead and Oracle Alliance Director. She has spoken at over 100
conferences worldwide and posts at debrasoraclethoughts