The Applications Previously Known as Fusion

When Oracle first mentioned Fusion I thought it was just going to be a project name, called something different on release. Oracle announced that they were going to take the best of the functionality from each of the applications they owned, their own original E business suite, PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, and Siebel and the 'fusion', built using modern technology and open standards, the next generation suite of applications.

 

The name stuck, the marketing started but a term appeared was coined - 'Fusion, Confusion', which  really annoyed me because the Fusion applications story I thought was quite straightforward.

What did confuse people at this stage was the technology I was always being asked if it was going to have Oracle forms and reports I thought they were quite clear that this would be a new technology stack on their award-winning database. In my role leading the Product Development Committee I presented to the Apps marketing team at Oracle in 2006 about how users worldwide understood the Fusion project. On e of the points we made was more than half of those surveyed were:

Unaware of middleware’s importance to applications

 

Not long after that (and we don't take all the credit) Oracle introduced Fusion into the Middleware stack name, calling it Oracle Fusion Middleware. I guess this made it clear there was a link between Fusion Applications and the Middleware but I’m not sure it clarified it very well.

 

When Fusion Applications were released late 2010 and people started looking at what was needed they were all too well aware of the technology stack. It is a very complicated with lots of components and requiring an enormous amount of hardware, it was almost a step too far for most organisations. The availability of Fusion in the Cloud has changed this, and most are happy that when deployed in the cloud they don’t have to concern themselves with the middleware.

 

Cloud deployment is definitely the way forward and last year Oracle decided that all applications that could be deployed in the cloud be given the name of Cloud Applications. Those applications I would have called traditional are now known as On-Premise Applications. Cloud applications includes not only Fusion but also some cloud acquisitions such as Taleo. Over a year ago I sat through a partner webcast that went through this, Start by deployment option, Product Family, Product Name, and was truly confused. This year Oracle marketing wanted us to stop using Fusion in our UKOUG marketing and when we held our Apps Transformation event most of the post event feedback from people who didn't attend was 'I didn't realise this was about Fusion'. At Collaborate the organisers stuck to Fusion as a theme for this reason.

So for a while the term has been interchangeable but not now at Oracle Open World I didn’t hear one Oracle person say Fusion in relation to applications. * a comment to this blog show some sessions did have Fusion in the title, which I guess agrees with my point until people understand the name change we have to keep saying Fusion so they know what we mean.

Interestingly if you google Fusion Applications today (19 Oct 2014, as this will change) you can find pages on Fusion Applications but if you navigate you find Cloud Applications   

Technically I believe it is still Fusion on the price list but that will change too. So whilst I will try to use the right name I am sure we will all know what I mean if I forget and say Fusion!

How Proud am I

At UKOUG TEBS (technology and E Business Suite) conference we had a fantastic agenda for Applications with a keynote from Cliff Godwin talking about EBS and the first public Fusion Application demos outside the US. Not only did Cliff give an excellent keynote but he then met with two groups of SIG leaders to answer their questions and then joined them in a two hour open question time. From start to finish of the day he talked with users, answered questions and gave insight into the future of EBS. I received an email from him a few days later where he said “Congratulations on organizing a successful conference. I was pleased with the meetings I had and the opportunity for the extensive Q&A interaction with customers.”

On the Tuesday the Fusion Apps session was over subscribed and some people had to be turned away, a great success for us but I wish everyone could have seen it. On the Wednesday we had a special Fusion Applications stream that started with a two hour session that included the first demos, and as I introduced them, I talked about how we UKOUG got to where we are today and I realised just how hard we had worked at getting there.

In 2005 when Oracle first announced Project Fusion, and remember at that time they said we would all be on Fusion by 2013, UKOUG knew that it would become very important to our members.

So I proposed to our board that we should create a Fusion Forum to look at what our members wanted. This was agreed and James and I worked on a project plan one lunch time in Texas (during Collaborate 05).

The strategy was to create 5 groups of 8 members each containing a cross section of all application users, public and private sector and partners. The split was created after a survey of the members and the groups covered Financials, Supply Chain / Manufacturing, CFM, HR / Payroll and Applications Technology. Each Group had at least 1 user from each of EBS, PeopleSoft, JDE (remember this is before the Siebel acquisition), no more than 2 partners and at least one public sector member.

These groups had a set life of one year, launched at our conference that year with a thank you dinner the following year; in between they canvassed members and wrote white papers on what they found. The response from Oracle was mixed, the HCM white paper never seemed to find the right person in Oracle but the Financials Group were asked to comment further. They found that no existing product line had the right process for encumbrance accounting, and Oracle asked what the right process should be. It is interesting that the first release of Fusion Applications does not include any public sector functionality so we will have to wait until release 2 to see how they actually deal with the functionality.

In the International Oracle Community we UKOUG were held up as best practice, "We appreciate the effort that the UKOUG Fusion Focus groups have invested in the white papers that have been submitted to Oracle. It's obvious that the participating customers devoted considerable time to write these papers. This type of detailed input is extremely valuable and timely, as we finalize requirements and begin designing Oracle Fusion.”

By this time the IOUC had created a committee to hold the Fusion Channel and UKOUG Strategy was that I should stand as chair to ensure our input. I was voted in, and 2 years later when it was up for grabs again, I stood unopposed and intend to stay until at least Fusion Applications are on General Availability. The Product Development Committee or PDC looks after more than Fusion Applications but it was our main interest until the announcement of Applications Unlimited.

As a result of the work I did and continue to do with the PDC I was nominated to be one of the first Oracle ACEs for Applications, and then named User Group Evangelist of the Year 2008, as well as gaining ACE Director status. Each quarter we have a Q&Q session with Oracle Development and the questions can be found in the library.

During this time Fusion Applications have been under wraps and I have been under non disclosure but despite that I have tried to keep people as informed as possible, presenting at SIGs, our own conferences and thanks to the ACE program at other events further afield.

And back to conference, this was planned well before Oracle Open World but with no advertising as we were not 100% sure that Larry Ellison would talk about Fusion Applications, but he did and the non disclosure was lifted and we fire ahead with the planned stream.

Clive Swan SVP Product Development responsible for HCM in Fusion along with Jeremy Ashley VP responsible for User Experience assisted by Aylin Uysal gave us a valuable insight into the Applications, and several demos.

I was then able to give feedback on the Customer Validation sessions I had attended; again supported by the ACE program, and then we had a great Q&A session. This event was another first for UKOUG, this session had its own tea & coffee delivered to ensure we wasted no time.

After lunch Nadia Bendjedou from EBS Applications Technology gave her fantastic ’10 Steps to Fusion’ presentation which now has much more Fusion Applications positioning in it. It is really worth hearing or downloading this paper as the magic behind Fusion Applications is a combination of the technology and User Experience and most of that is available to you today, and in the latest releases of Applications Unlimited you can see a lot of the technology has already been introduced.

Nadia has also worked with the PDC to create a little Oracle Applications Planning Tool which you can download to help you have the conversation in your organisation as to how you are or could adopt some of this technology.

Then there was a choice, a deeper dive into the User Experience with Ashley or the Technology with Duncan Mills.

Quite interesting that whilst Ashley and Duncan came over from Redwood, they are both British, as is Clive. Nadia works in the Oracle Paris Office and although Algerian by birth has a British passport and studied at Aston University in Birmingham. So don’t think Fusion Applications is just the next product out of Redwood, they couldn’t have done it without us Brits.

So you can see that the UKOUG board has a strategy around Fusion and has worked hard to make sure you are the most educated User Group in the world with the best access.

We are not ready for a Fusion Applications SIG but we do have a Fusion Community on ukoug.org.

The Most Frequent Question About Fusion Apps

I know I am privileged, I have had unrivalled access to Oracle during the entire Fusion Apps development, and when I have a question I have always been given the answer. I wrote recently about why I thought people weren’t all listening to the Oracle apps message, but now I am even more worried.

I am not sure of all the support timings but most of the Apps Unlimited products have their -1 version either in or about what to go into extended support, and a very frequent question is ‘Do I upgrade or do I wait for Fusion apps?’

This is such an open question, and unfortunately the answer is very dependant on your organization, there is no simple yes or no. Again I have said it before but this is where partners and user groups will add value to the debate, by helping people to understand.

I know Oracle have a campaign this year that will again explain their Applications Strategy, both for existing products and for Fusion, and how it isn’t just the either / or question. In the US there was the Oracle Applications Customer Value Summit on 3^rd February which had a lot of answers to individual product roadmaps, co-existence and Fusion apps themselves. I know this content will be presented or made available in other regions over the next few months. This approach of telling the stories together is very important.

But I want to share with you, and Oracle part of an email trail I had last week, which shows just how frustrated some customers are. I have edited a little bit just to make it remain anonymous. 

  

I've read a few articles about Fusion Apps written by you on the web. 

Wasn't sure about how Fusion Financials differ from R12.1 Financials - do you have an 'insiders' guide? Or are they effectively the same? Can you point me to some papers/presentations? There's a lot of conFUSION about FUSION!

Fusion Apps are a completely different project, however they are not launched yet a few more months to go so little information out there. I attach a white paper I wrote a while ago that might help.

Where you based and what is your current use of Oracle Apps? I can then point you to the right user group who can help

Many thanks for your prompt reply - I am based in the UK and we are on 11.5.10.2 Financials.

Reason I sent email to you is because you have been working with Oracle and know what's in Fusion. I know what's in FMW but am not sure if R12 Financials is the same as Fusion Financials - I expect they are but nobody says yes or no! Makes me wonder if it's Oracle Marketing's gimmick i.e. apps are the same but with FMW embedded in the techStack.

Someone I know in Oracle told me earlier today that even they do not know - demo's are only to invited oracle staff which I find strange!

Your comments will be appreciated.

Because the product is not yet generally available (GA) and Oracle have very strict revenue recognition rules, they cannot make too much information available yet.

In a nut shell, R12 is the original EBS product, enhanced and is starting to use newer technology. Fusion incl Fusion Financials is a completely different product built entirely in FMW.

Fusion apps are awesome but it is not a simple upgrade, there are lots of technology changes as well. Over the next year or so Oracle will roll out the product giving more information and then you will learn more.

UKOUG (.org) is the UK user group and we had lots of demos of Fusion Apps in our Birmingham conference in December.

This is hot off the press, but the main UK event will be 31st March so look out for details.

Is your organisation a member of UKOUG?

Many thanks Debra - no we are not members. Looks like Oracle have once again announced a product years before it's ready. Even people working for Oracle don't know what's in it, not sure how customers who have a decision to make on whether to upgrade to R12 or wait for a product which may be released later this year and which initially won't ( I suspect ) be very stable.

You are talking to the wrong people in Oracle. The product is ready but not GA for a few months while they work with early adopters to ensure there are no bugs.

If you are not on R12 already then it is very unlikely your organization has the appetite to be an early adopter and so there is no real choice for you, the answer is to go R12. Fusion is a completely new architecture and way of working, it is not a straight forward either or choice.

People in Oracle should not be telling you they know nothing about it, they should be referring you to someone who does.

 

Oracle consulting are part of the ramp up program so your contact should be able to find you someone.  I represent UKOUG and to ensure I have the right answer we have invested time in being part of the process. My employer sees this as a benefit so that we have the right information too, and therefore gives me the time.

Oracle did not rewrite all the products. They announced back in 2005 that they would write a new generation of apps based on new technology which is what Fusion Applications are. It is not a replacement. They did originally intend that but feedback from users and groups like UKOUG was that this was not what customers wanted, so they announced in 2006 Applications Unlimited where they would continue to develop each of the product lines. In fact after Fusion Apps v1 is released there will be R12.3 so this stands by what they said.

Fusion is ready and the amount of testing has been unprecedented, but IT is complex and there are as many deployment options as there are customers. There is also the opportunity to co-exist, e.g run Fusion Talent Management alongside R12 EBS, so Oracle are working with early adopters to have as many as possible case studies.

I find it a bit unbelievable that Oracle would re-write the whole of R12 Financials/PeopleSoft/Siebel etc for Fusion. I would expect certain changes like BPEL for Workflow, etc but not a complete rewrite of R12 so soon after R12 was released but I guess you know more because you have the inside story.

Ok that clears things up a little bit but I'll wait and see.

I can honestly say that I have spoken to many people who work with Oracle (Oracle and non-Oracle people) and no-one understands what Fusion is about - this is fact which just shows that all Oracle have managed to do is cause confusion!

Many thanks for your time in replying to my emails - you are obviously very dedicated to the Fusion cause.

This is a typical conversation and I think that if you feel the same you need to start engaging, and start by being active with your user group and be part of the debate.

Fusion at TEBS and what next?

Let's start by defining Oracle Fusion. Fusion is the middleware technology and Fusion Apps are Oracle's soon to be released suite of applications written entirely in Fusion Technology.

As  I have waited patiently for the applications to be developed, I have acquired an interest in the technology, and it making it easy to understand from a business perspective.


So following on from the success of my two papers at Oracle Open World I presented them at TEBS: 42 Real Life Examples of Fusion Middleware with Apps and Stay Away if you are technical, Fusion Middleware for Business. These are very important to me I want people to really understand the benefits. I keep on saying this but I think Fusion Applications will at first be a fantastic window on what the technology can do before people actually start to adopt the applications themselves.

Clive Swan

Fellow ACE Director Sten Vesterli is a fusion developer and he has written an excellent blog posting on what he hopes will the pricing policy. We need to remember that the functionality portion of the costs can be transferred from a customers existing portfolio, it is the technology costs we don't know yet. I hope Oracle do get it right because the product is excellent.

Our Fusion Apps stream was excellent and led again for us by Clive Swan, GVP fusion HCM who won our Oracle Applications IPA from last year and he was joined again by Jeremy Ashley, VP User Experience and wrote about his thoughts in his blog.

We had an excellent session from Gartner where Nigel Montgomery gave us a strategy for looking at our own businesses whilst assessing what Fusion applications might give us. Later that day he hosted a round table and it is still apparent that a lot of people are still confused. A thought I will come back to in a later posting. It isn't just about the message it is about our listening habits.

Anthony Lye

Another speaker was Anthony Lye, SVP CRM. Anthony is a friend of UKOUG and regularly travels over from redwood to address our Siebel community, but he is also very integral to Fusion. some of the first stand alone Fusion Modules were CRM and he asked us to include his presentation on how they fitted in and the new things being added. All Oracle executives have punishing schedules and Anthony arrived, sat in the corridor for last minute preparations and then flew off to Belfast where he was making his first visit to ATG a recent acquisition which he now runs. Thank you to all our Fusion Speakers for being with us.

There were two days of Fusion content at TEBS and I finished up with my session on 'What Next?'. We first did this in the last Financials SIG, looking at all the options for going forward ad how to approach them. I wanted people to think about R12, and move away from the 'shall I wait?' option. So we looked at all the ways to go to R12 and some of the feedback we have had from users who have made the move. Back in the summer I did a joint presentation at Insync in Australia with Mogens Nørgaard on Business accelerators, and the options this approach to a new install can give you. We didn't have time to do the whole presentation but we did manage to include a little bit ad I was honored that Mogens was able to join me again. He talked about using the money saved over a traditional implementation to ensure you embrace the FMW technology for your integrations, and we developed a new acronym PINT, Perfect Integrations New Technology and if you know Mogens you will know just how apt that is.

I think we achieved a good balance of information without too much hype. The applications will be with us soon enough and we want people to be interested but not expect a missive uptake from day one. So back to my first point, Fusion Applications will be with us soon, stick with UKOUG to show you the best way to navigate all the information and expect a lot more about the technology.

Fusion Thoughts from Ascend and Kscope Conferences

Still catching up.

Ascend and Kscope confirmed for me that Fusion adoption is increasingly shaped by the technology ecosystem around it, particularly OCI, AI, analytics, integration, and the technical skills needed to support change.

 

At Ascend conference I was speaking in the EBS stream, which I blogged about earlier in the week.

There was a lot of HCM content for Fusion but not as much across the entire suite as I hoped for and possibly because this is my area expertise, I didn't attend many Fusion sessions but did talk to lots of users which teaches me far more.

I was on the panel for the AI Special Interest Group meeting, and it was good to see that organizations are dipping their toes into AI Agents and have embraced at least some of the Generative AI delivered in Fusion.

I also had the chance to talk about AI in Fusion with Connor MacDonald in an Uber which he shared online.

I am really interested in the technology that underpins our applications and I believe that the technical people in an organization that runs Fusion also have the same thirst for knowledge. For those reasons I have been a longtime supporter of ODTUG.

We talk about Fusion being sold to the business rather than IT but that doesn't mean the IT team have no role during the implementation. It's incredibly important that they are working with the integration, with the data migration and understanding how they move from where they are today which undoubtedly will have been an on premise and highly maintained by their team.  

It may be that SaaS once implemented requires less intervention but in the sales cycle I know that just natural curiosity means these teams want to know what's going on in Fusion and whilst they can't go under the covers to the application database, there is still the integration, the way it works with the rest of their estate, and how data is used before and after the application processes to worry about. Technology is still very important to this community. 

I have been on the board of ODTUG for 4 years and campaigned for an OCI community because I believe that that's where that technology lives and I was so happy when ODTUG launched OCI last year.

At the Kscope conference this year we had our first OCI tracks. I was very impressed at the number of technical people who were Fusion users, some were our traditional APEX or Visual Builder developers who are extending Fusion, some from our Analytics community who are using FDI or EPM practitioners who are running it with Fusion and some were net new people who were just coming for the OCI angle. 

Some new attendees were also E Business Suite, (EBS) admins assessing what a move to Fusion technically involved.

Feedback we got was they wanted more FDI content. We did had several amazing sessions that explained how AI works and how AI is exposed in Oracle, in OCI, in the applications, in EPM, in Analytics and in Integrations. The presentations really appealed to me as a Fusion practitioner who loves the technology.

What I learnt from the sessions I attended and some of the things that resonated with me in the conversations match what I see with our customers. 

For a while most financial users of Fusion have purchased the EPM modules at the same time and there is talk that that link between them will become even tighter.

One presentation I attended talked about implementing FDI at the same time as Fusion and not as a later phase, and especially when an organization is using Finance and Supply Chain, the value of having the analytics from day one drives even better adoption.

One session addressed the AI everywhere in Fusion and partners are delivering agents at pace. But how do organizations know where to start? At Inoapps, we are working with our customers, helping them choose the delivered AI Agents that are relevant for them from Oracle’s portfolio or from the marketplace of partner agents and then what ones do they need to alter or build themselves. Advice I give and echoed by every speaker at Kscope is start small, don't try and produce a massive list to tackle, look at the ones that make sense. 

As the board liaison for the OCI Community I also held a town hall jointly with Abi Giles-Haigh who is responsible for the AI Community and we looked at some common threads, starting with skills and the need to stay current.

A significant number of our audience were using or thinking of using Fusion and this validates having the OCI Community and I look forward to growing that in the future under the leadership of Roger Cressey.

Fusion Applications Are Here…..almost

Not quite General Availability, just a few months away, but finally Fusion Applications are amongst us. If we disregard the keynotes as I have, the Fusion Apps content at OOW was actually excellent.

There were 42 (great number) presentations during OOW on Fusion Applications and plenty of pods in the demo grounds, so if you came looking for information there was a lot to see.

Steve kicked off on the Monday with a general Applications session where he had all the applications’ General Managers on the stage together. This is a big change, Fusion Apps and Apps Unlimited being talked about together. There was a lot about how the existing systems co-exist, for example E Business Suite and GLog and then Steve went on to show how Fusion Apps could also co-exist.

I thought this was a powerful and well explained option for the deployment of Fusion Applications. Most people think it will either be an upgrade or a reimplementation. Steve clearly articulated that this option of adopting the modules that add value to your organization without all the need to move to a complete Fusion stack, or where there is not the availability of all the modules you need for a full move and yet you don’t have to wait.

So there is a choice, Stay with Applications Unlimited, your current footprint (but do think about upgrading to a supported version), Run some of Fusion Apps along side your current footprint, or move to a full Fusion Applications implementation.

This is the rub, long gone are the days you simply upgraded. The support strategy and the range of options, means that you do what is right for your organization. Easily said but how does that help people with their applications strategy? This is where partners are going to show their true value, by understanding both the customer’s needs, opportunities and constraints and the Oracle product set and being  that ‘trusted partner’ who can give the right advice. Ray Wang from Altimeter talked about this being one of the big partner differentiators in his analyst preview on the Sunday.  This is why Fujitsu let me do what I do, how can I help advise if I don’t really understand?

Monday evening I was invited to dinner with Steve’s team and the Fusion early adopter customers, it was really interesting to see what strategies they are adopting and why. What was common amongst all of them was the real excitement and anticipation.

Tuesday Steve had his first full Fusion session, and I was so honoured to be asked to introduce him. At the dinner I threatened to present him with a present in my intro. In the end I did it before we started. I presented him with the baseball cap I was given at the Halfway to Fusion Event on 18.01.2006. The date is actually embroidered on the cap. I don’t actually mind it has taken so long; the apps have been worth waiting for.

Steve invited me to kick off the session to explain how users have been included in the development of Fusion Apps since day one. I got to gush about this, and he publically thanked us not only when I handed over but throughout the session. I want to take the opportunity to make a point here. Being a user group member means you are included.

Steve did a brilliant job of explaining how Fusion Applications have been put together, the design principles, the patterns and the user experience.  I didn’t get a chance to see all the drill down sessions but I did see the User Experience session from Jeremy Ashley. At the moment you can only replay these and all the other sessions  if you have the Open World on Demand.

Immediately after Steve’s first presentation the Fusion Applications page was updated on Oracle.com and there is a lot of information. Let’s see if we can encourage Oracle to add these main sessions. 

There is plenty of time to see the demos, throughout this year, I don’t think we are all queuing up to get started, although over 100 customers made enquiries at OOW. However if you are and are serious talk to your account manager, it is possible to be assessed for suitability by the early adoption team.

My advice is to understand the design principles which are well described on the oracle.com website and see more demos of the applications themselves. 

Since OOW I have been asked to give my thoughts to a number of groups and my first presentation was to the Danish Oracle User Group, a favourite of mine followed by an ‘What DO We Do Next’ open question session with my own UKOUG Financials Special Interest Group. I am currently working with Steve’s development team and the ACE program to provide demo training for those interested in the ACE Director program, similar to FMW4Apps kits we had previously had. Being trained and enabled by Oracle enables us to give our own presentations but with system VMs, it allows us to get to audiences that may not get Oracle product managers or an independent view.

 People have lots of questions and we still have regular question times with Steve, a commitment Oracle made right back when they first announced Fusion Applications. If you have any questions not covered by the oracle.com page then submit it here .

But the best place to find out more soon - come to UKOUG  (29 Nov - 1 Dec) we have 2 days of Fusion Applications, the product, the design, the technology the choice and the experts.

Fusion Apps Go Mobile

One of the things that resonated with me about OOW was how the Fusion Applications are driving the development through the stack and no where is as obvious as the middleware. In fact in all my presentations I talk about Fusion Applications being a window on FMW.

At OOW ADF mobile was launched, the ability to code once and deploy across a range of mobile devices. Oracle must have been listening to me as they very cleverly had put ADF developers into the User Experience team to create apps for Fusion ahead of the launch. The team headed by fellow Brit VP Jeremy Ashley understand users and they have the skills to understand what works well as a mobile app. 

But lets step back a minute, Oracle have 3 kinds of mobile delivery for Fusion. 

These are not simply putting Fusion Applications onto mobile, it is NOT a rewrite after just a year as I have heard asked. 

Fusion Tap is Fusion Applications deployed for Tablets; it was demonstrated by Chris Leone SVP for Fusion Applications at OOW, but if you missed it watch this excellent video. Fusion Tap is a single app that recognises all the security and access of your Fusion Applications implementation and most importantly also works offline.

Oracle ADF builds the Cloud Apps for Mobile Web. The new face of Fusion (Project Fuse, is the internal name) are example apps written using ADF. Using ADF means that you can deploy a browser based application on any device, tablet, desktop, netbook etc. These are applications that make life simple for casual or mobile users. They don't replace the professional interface and as explained by Jeremy, think of what you do on your smartphone, you may use an airlines full site for browsing and selecting flights but once booked the mobile apps on the go and in your pocket allow for checking flight status and online check in.

A great pride of mine is being the catalyst for the FXA program run by Misha Vaughan in Jeremy's team, these Fusion User Experience Advocates are all from the ACE program and are experts from across the middleware (plus me ) who have an in depth understanding of not just the product and technology but also the science behind usability.

Me and a 'salesperson'

Last year the training was extended to a group of internal people under the SAMBA (Sales Ambassadors) banner. Working with sales people can be a challenge for me :-) but actually this team is really about sales specialists who are called upon to explain the product rather than the pricing. Not much different from me then (just don't tell them).

We had another day of training on the Wednesday before OOW, before the ACE director briefings (OOW is a bit like Christmas, we start the process earlier and earlier every year).

This time we looked further at the extensibility of the  applications and of course we spent time learning about and how to demo the Fuse applications. Oracle loaded them onto iPads and onto my new Fujitsu android tablet. Initially ADF mobile has iPad and browser support, so on the android I am using a browser version but it behaves identically. 

One of the highlights of my OOW was when Jeremy asked 3 of the FXA team, Basheer Khan, Edward Roske and myself to demo these applications in his general session. What really impressed me was the number of ADF developers who attended the session, backing my theory about Fusion Applications being the window on the technology. One of these developers Wilfred vander Deijl  filmed the demo.

The third category of mobile are specific smartphone apps. I  have the Fusion expenses app loaded on my iPhone which was written in native java and uses OCR to scan receipts and I must of scanned most of the issued receipts in San Francisco during OOW showing people the functionality.


I do love my fellow ACE Directors and it seems I gave them plenty of entertainment:

Note. In an earlier draft of this post I incorrectly stated that Fusion FUSE was ADF Mobile. It is ADF but the project started before ADF Mobile was available. ADF Mobile as a tool makes the process of developing and deploying mobile apps even easier.

Fusion and UKOUG

This year at UKOUG we split the Fusion Apps content into 'what and why' and 'how'. People are using Fusion now and it is time to talk about their experiences.

Liam Nolan gave the Fusion Community keynote, which unlike all the other communities was held on Tuesday as we knew so many people would be interested. It was a great recap of where Fusion is and covered much of what I what I learnt at OOW.

After his presentation, Liam and I hosted a round table where almost the whole audience remained. Interestingly there is two distinct groups, customers who need to know what Fusion offers them and Partners who need to understand the market opportunities for them. We are looking in UKOUG at what to do with the Fusion Community in 2013 and will be talking to the Partner Forum as to how we can make this happen. We need to ensure we give both communities what they need without smothering the end user.

The best presentation for me was from Standard Life. They haven't finished their journey but have a great approach to it, starting with this brilliant video as to why? What interested me most was that Standard Life like many organisations taking up Fusion Apps are not only doing it in co-existence but also using a SAAS delivery model. This has different considerations for both the customer and their partner (Standard Life partner with IBM); I know in Fujitsu I am working hard with Oracle on what this means for us. Topic for another post I think.

My presentation was based on the article I wrote for Quest and what I think Fusion Applications means to Organisations.

What would Fusion content be without the UX team? We are so luckly with their support at UKOUG. Jeremy Ashley brings his team each year. His presentation was about Fusion Mobility and like at OOW I got to be his demo babe.

There was also a couple of videos made of Jeremy where I interviewed him about Fusion Mobile and UX but he is a pro, turned the conversation around and got me to talk about Fusion. Can't wait to see the edited copy.

If you have anything you want us to look at for the Fusion Applications community this year, contact me through UKOUG.

Why Don't People Understand Fusion?

Oracle have taken a lot of stick about how long it has taken Fusion applications to come to market, so at least they could have spent that time making sure we all understood. Well that is what I have thought and have been pretty vocal about it.

To start with Oracle did talk about it a lot and quite near the start I was asked by Oracle Marketing to present to them about how users were taking in that message. My Product Development Committee in the IOUC took the request seriously and interviewed selected users across the globe from many different communities and user groups. We wrote a white paper on how we thought the message was coming across and then we presented it to a group of executives in Redwood. I started by passing round large laminated cards that said Fusion on one side and showed a picture of something called Fusion on the other. They were all face down and then I had the executives turn them over. Only one was Oracle Fusion. My point was, that at that time there was a lot of talk about Fusion but not everybody got the message.

We had two main recommendations and I thought it would be interesting to see if they are still valid today. The first was that the different application families needed different messages, e.g. PeopleSoft, JDE, Siebel etc and the second was that Oracle were not talking to the technical community who seemed to switch off whenever Fusion was mentioned.

Oracle listened and then two important things happened. first they stopped talking about the applications as much, which I say again frustrated me but they did start talking about the technology, and although I don't take the credit they renamed the technology Fusion Middleware (FMW), which did make the technical community at least recognise Fusion.

Then we worked with the newly formed FMW for Apps team to see if we could showcase some uses of FMW. Markus Zirn the VP there had a great grid of functionality against app so he had case studies of each of the application families using say single sign on or BI Publisher or other elements of FMW.

Later Markus launched  the FMW Excellence Awards to showcase more examples and many user groups supported and joined in the initiative. But one of the best ways that Oracle have promoted the technology that Fusion Applications are written in for Applications Unlimited is all down to one person. Nadia Bendjedou and her white paper and presentations Things You Can Do Today to Prepare for Fusion.

Later nadia worked with us to design the Oracle Applications Planning Tool, a download that helps you have the conversation about FMW with your organisation.

 My own presentations have a basis in Nadia's paper and we have often presented together, and since the applications were showcased at OOW 2009 several user groups have put together excellent Fusion tracks. But we did present to the different communities separately, not a different message but relevant examples. again Markus' team stepped in to give some people in the ACE Program apps kits to allow us to give these demos.

In the mean time development kept to their promise to talk to user group leaders about the progress of the applications. they included us in their Inner circle and every 3-4 months we had the opportunity to ask questions of Steve Miranda. In the middle of December we had what will be our last question time, in just a few months the applications will be released. Each time we collect the questions there are a number repeated, that doesn't worry me, it is important for us as user group leaders and for Oracle to see that the answers are still not obvious to everyone. I want to publicly say thank you to Development for keeping that promise.

Does it mean the communication is bad? No I don't think so, the last year Oracle have given a lot of information and this year's OOW there was a smorgasbord of content about Fusion, I just think many users have ignored Fusion until it either resonated with them or they could ignore it no more.

The other evening I was watching a review of the top 20 TV adverts of the year, and I had only seen 3 of them. I commented on this on facebook and had some comments about our viewing habits and my 'being at home' habits and it made me think. a few years ago, TV advertising was very big and probably the main way people advertised their goods and services. I watch much less TV which with the choice of 100s of channels may seem odd, but I am more selective and have the opportunity to record what I want to watch, and when I watch them I ignore all the adverts, so I simply am unaware of them. The same is true for Oracle, we tune out what we think we are not interested in and then are simply unaware of everything else, most people have spent the last year or so trying to avoid big IT projects so why look at what you are not going to do?

As customers we are less interested in TV adverts, what sells things today is social media, the buzz on twitter etc when the iPad was released, stories from actual customers have sold far more than any TV advert. In the same way Oracle know that what will sell Fusion Applications is feedback, customer stories from early adopters and independent commentary from people like myself in the ACE Program and user groups.

So lets not talk about Fusion - Confusion, a term I HATE, we as consumers are selective about what we want to hear about and when the applications are released so will that desire for information and let's hope Oracle have the program in place to answer the questions and work with the user groups to ensure we give the independent assessments the users need.

P.S. I am still very excited.

On Stage at Oracle - My Journey Through The Years

 

My First Oracle Annual Event, then called Oracle Open World was 2004, I have attended every event since, and spoken in some way at every one of them from 2005. 

In those early days there was a whole day of user group sessions, so it was a wee bit easier to get a session selected. As an ACE Director I have spoken with several Oracle Product Development Teams, some sessions where my employer was a sponsor and more importantly to me, where I have had the privilege to talk with end user organizations I have worked with.

This year I am speaking as a customer! Inoapps use Fusion for Finance and HR and I will be with Mastercard talking about their virtual payment offering and why Inoapps, their first Oracle customer, use this.

As I move towards retirement, I thought it would be quite fun to list my sessions like a rock band tour, I don't have details for the first few years as I didn't have a blog then.

2026 

B2B Payments: Embedded Approach to Operational Efficiency and Working Capital

2025 

'Modernizing EBS'

2024 

'Applications Unlimited Customers—Put an End to Cloud Confusion'

2023 

'Extending Oracle Fusion Cloud Apps—What We Learned'

'An Introduction to Extending Oracle Fusion Cloud Apps'

'Applications Unlimited Customers—Put an End to Cloud Confusion'

2022  

'My Contractor, a showcase of Oracle ME (My Experience)'

2021 / 2020

No Annual Event (Covid)

2019 

'Should I Move to Oracle Cloud Applications' 

2018

'A chatbot working with HCM'  

'SOA Cloud session based on a Skanska HCM implementation'

2017

'Delivering People Excellence for DHL'

2016 

#PaaS4SaaS

'Digital Transformation in Sport The England Rugby Fusion Story'

2015 

'Forming Your Future: Upgrade/Migration to Oracle Fusion Applications'

'What Does It Take to Make Oracle HCM Cloud Work? The JT Story'

2014   

'Technology assisted deployments and upgrades'

'First Time UX experience'

2013 

'The Fusion Decision Journey'

2012

'Usability and Features of Oracle Fusion Applications, Built upon Oracle Fusion Middleware'

'How Fujitsu Built Its Oracle Cloud for Its Customers'

'Consolidation: Optimize Your Entire Oracle Investment as a Platform for Growth'

'Oracle’s Roadmap to a Simple, Modern User Experience' 

'Consolidation for the Cloud'

2011 

'Your Path to Understanding Fusion Applications'

'Do I Upgrade or go straight to Oracle Fusion Applications?'

'Consolidation to the Cloud'

2010 

‘Fusion MiddleWare for Business – Stay Away if you are Technical’

'42 Real Life Examples of Fusion Middleware’

‘What to Look For in A Systems Integrator’

2009  

  'Shared-Service Oracle E-Business Suite 12' 

'Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, and SOA' 

 'Applications Upgrade Planning Tool'

2008  

  'Extended the E Business Suite with Hyperion' 

      '10 Things you can do to prepare for Fusion Now'