Oracle improves integration for a multi-vendor world

Oracle has announced a series of products to make its business software easier to integrate with rival suppliers' applications.

The vendor unveiled an updated version of its Ebusiness Suite that uses web services to enable easier interworking with other systems, and launched a package of products to enable non-Oracle users to improve the quality of their data and achieve a single view of customers.

Oracle's Ebusiness Suite 11i.10, which is due for a summer launch, will be fully internet-enabled with hundreds of web services interfaces, as well as featuring a range of industry standards to enable low-cost integration, according to the supplier.

Oracle president Chuck Phillips told delegates at its AppsWorld user conference that the company believes it has wiped the integration issue off the table.

'We are using internet services to make the Ebusiness Suite easier to talk to,' he said.

Phillips says Oracle has included industry-specific protocols in its software to make integration easier.

A new product to improve interoperability with rival applications, called the Customer Data Hub, was announced, targeted at customers that have not fully adopted the Oracle Ebusiness suite. The package is designed to allow firms with disparate business applications to gain a single view of their customers.

Built around Oracle Application Server 10g, the software will consolidate real-time information gathered from third party applications.

Oracle Customers Online will provide a single window into a company's central repository of information, with customer management and relationship management capabilities.

And Oracle Data Librarian will offer consolidation and data quality and cleansing tools that help users manage their information. A set of pre-built customer analysis tools is also available at an extra cost.

In the past, Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison has strongly argued for the benefits of a single, integrated application suite. He has long been a critic of integrating software from different suppliers.

But at AppsWorld, Ellison conceded that a different approach is necessary for companies battling against too many legacy systems and third-party applications.

'We are not giving up on what we said before, but not everyone in the world wanted to go that way,' he said. 'People said they wanted to live in a heterogeneous world.'

The supplier made several other announcements during AppsWorld:

* Oracle has enhanced its hosted software management service, Oracle Outsourcing, with a new pricing model that allows users to license software on a per-user, per-month basis. Oracle says the model helps create transparent IT budgets for firms, as well as provide enough flexibility to cover fluctuations in computing demand.

* Radio Frequency identification (RFID) and Electronic Product Code capabilities will be included in the next version of Oracle's warehouse management software, due in the summer. The product will use Oracle's 10g database and application server software to provide a comprehensive RFID platform that can deal with large volumes of transactional data and improve order fulfilment, according to the company.

* The supplier unveiled a new customer-facing division called the Customer Advocacy Group, with a brief to meet with its larger users more often.