PeopleSoft Tipster

Oracle’s Project X – What does it mean for a PeopleSoft user? April 18, 2007

What is Project X?

There’s been a bit of talk today about Oracle’s Project X. It’s been bubbling around for a while, but now it has been officially announced as ‘Oracle Application Integration Architecture’ and – to paraphrase – it’s a method of joining together disparate ERP systems.

By purchasing Process Integration Packs (PIPs) clients will be able to connect systems – initially I’d imagine it would be PeopleSoft, Oracle e-Biz, Siebel and JDE, but other systems will no doubt be added in the fullness of time. This is, of course, a high visibility use of the much heralded SOA (Service Orientated Architecture) – one of the buzzwords you can’t avoid hearing in any Fusion discussion. I guess this is Oracle responding to customers saying ‘enough with the SOA/BPEL/XMLP tub-thumping, show me how it improves my business’.

What does it mean for PeopleSoft people?

Whenever Oracle come out with a big announcement, the first question for me is always ‘what does this mean for the PeopleSoft world’? After all, straight after the takeover Oracle announced that we’d all be forced to migrate to Fusion. Then we were going to be temporarily supported on our current ERPs before migrating. Next came Applications Unlimited, meaning we could hold fire a bit longer. Now, Oracle release a technology enabling us to not migrate to Fusion at all, but stay put and let the different ERPs communicate.

A cynic might wonder if they were having problems with Fusion. Or perhaps it’s all going swimmingly but they’re hearing that clients quite like their current systems and don’t want to move? Or are they just after the extra revenue stream PIP sales would bring before Fusion comes along?