Oracle Corp says it plans to finish the job of making its Applications suite fully internet-enabled with the roll out later this year of Release 11i. Previewed at the Oracle Applications User Group meeting in San Diego this week, Release 11i is the first set to be integrated with Oracle’s 8i internet database.
Oracle began the change from a client-server to internet architecture by replacing the user interface with a browser in Release 11 of Oracle Applications, which began shipping a year ago. It says that it has now delivered product to 2,300 customer sites, and has 100 customers running live systems. With just a browser installed on the desktop, claims Oracle, cost of administration has been significantly cut. The biggest changes with the next version, due to ship in September, include new user interface and portal changes, and support for running large company installations using a single instance of the software on a centralized server – something that will further cut costs, Oracle says.
The user interface and portal front-end, which Oracle says can be personalized just like Yahoo! were built using Developer 2000 version 6 from Oracle’s tools division. The Applications Group has also been working closely with the database group to develop 8i to get the 11i applications to scale up for global-scale installations using a single instance, according to Ron Wohl, senior vice president of Oracle Applications development. It takes advantage of the parallel server and high availability capabilities of 8i, which enables multiple computers to be configured together as a single system. Most businesses operate globally, at least to some degree. The internet runs globally. Yet most business information systems are still running locally. It’s too hard to get any kind of global information because the data is too fragmented across systems. To prove its case, Oracle itself is in the midst of an 18-month plan for centralizing its applications, used by its 40,000 staff.
11i will also add new functionality to the applications, such as multi-currency consolidation for Financials, flow manufacturing for the Manufacturing applications, extended capabilities for Human Resources, and more self servicing support applications. The CRM customer relationship management application suite will also be aligned under the general 11i family name (see separate story). Oracle plans a stage roll-out of 11i, with international language versions and various ports coming out within a few months of the first September shipments.
