Analysts: Project Fusion Is the Death Knell for PeopleSoft Apps - ' Page 2 ' (
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He wasnt the only optimistic observer. Hamerman took away "a lot of positive messages" from the launch, particularly around product road maps. "I think theyve made some important organizational changes to manage this integration process," Hamerman said.
One of those organizational changes was to put Wookey in charge of applications, which signals a strong if unsurprising signal that Oracle is going to put much more emphasis on applications as a core product line, Hamerman said. "Historically, applications have been more of a sideline—20 percent of [Oracles] business," he said. "Now, having spent $10 billion on this acquisition, applications are now a very important part of business for Oracle."
Thats evidenced by other announced executive roles, he said, including Cliff Godwin being put in charge of technical strategy as the product lines are merged and Joel Summers, from the Oracle Human Resources Management Systems group, being put in charge of developing PeopleSoft applications.
"These are important management changes, and they put out a good road map," Hamerman said.
Are PeopleSoft customers bearing the brunt of the merger? Click here to read more.
Oracle also received high marks for retaining 90 percent of the support and service organizations. However, it remains to be seen how much of this talent the company retains, Greenbaum said. "They said they retained 90 percent of support and service, so I think theyre certainly in a position to deliver a certain level of support," he said. "I dont think 10 percent attrition translates to 10 percent less support. My question is, How many of these people jumped ship before the acquisition was finalized? Were they staffed up to full strength? Are they read to just jump in there and continue doing their jobs?"
One question Oracle did not address during the launch was how it will provide support for PeopleSoft applications that are run on Microsoft Corp.s SQL Server or IBMs DB2 databases. But, from a practical standpoint, database problems are a "secondary support level" from the application itself, Greenbaum said.
"Certainly Oracle can handle that first level of application support," he said. "When things wind up being a SQL Server or DB2 issue, theyll have to find those resources. But IBM has made numerous statements from the software side that they want to support these new Oracle customers from a technology standpoint, and it makes sense they would do that, so I have no doubt IBM will lend resources, as they do to all ISV partners—even big competitors."
Editors Note: This story was updated to correct a misidentification of Cliff Godwin.
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