Oracle's Industry Solution Push

While PAC's SAP Services Research Practice is obviously focused on SAP, we also do quite a bit of coverage on Oracle and other non-SAP application platforms in our SITSI research and customer work.

Attending Oracle Open World this week (+45,000 people!!), it is clear that Oracle is becoming more and more aggressive in positioning themselves as a leader in industry solutions through their various acquisitions, and along with their AIA (Application Integration Architecture) solution/initiative to offer their customers "integrated best of breed" suites.

While PAC believes it is a compelling message, it is clear that this is still a work in progress, for Oracle and its customers; and at the same time we also strongly disagree with Oracle's continuous labeling of SAP as just an ERP player, or even worse, "providing a good financial ledger." Come on guys!

On the other hand, there is no doubt that Oracle has drastically improved their industry solutions in sectors/segments such as utilities and tax & revenue (thanks to SPL), Retail (Retek, ProfitLogic, 360Commerce and others), Banking (i-Flex), Insurance and Telecommunications. However, from PAC's perspective and in conversations with many end-users at the conference, while Oracle's vision in each industry by offering cross-module process support and solutions is very intriguing, it seems half-baked... with a lot of vagueness around exactly what is being offered "out-of-the-box" and as a true turnkey solutions, as opposed to massive process re-engineering and integration projects!

Make sure to attend our webcast on the SAP Services market on October 2nd at 11am ET, where we will also spend a little time comparing the SAP & Oracle Services markets before diving into our SAP research. If you haven't received an invite, please email your contact info to me at p.russo@pac-online.com