Andrews Consulting

Oracle OpenWorld is still over 11 weeks away (September 30 – October 4) but those considering going need to decide soon whether to participate this year. Registration costs will increase $300 at the end of this week. More importantly, hotel and flight options become more scarce and expensive as each day passes. OpenWorld has become […]

Collaborate is always worthwhile but it forces you to work hard to catch back up after a week out of the office.  The time since Collaborate has given me a chance to reflect on all that I learned there.  This posting will net out my reactions to a great conference. The JD Edwards community was […]

Attendance at Collaborate this year was up roughly 50% from 2011 with over 1,100 people from JDE customer organizations and a total of over 6,000 attendees. The move back to Vegas certainly helped but the turnout is also a sign of an improving business atmosphere and a renewed interest in investing in IT. Monday at […]

At the first few Collaborate conferences after Oracle acquired PeopleSoft and JD Edwards then President Charles Phillips gave the opening keynote speech. A key message was that Oracle cared deeply about all of its application customers and especially those new to Oracle. I was fortunate enough to interview him on two of those occasions. His […]

OpenWorld is so big it is really many conferences all held together.  To cover as much as possible,I brought along three associates who spent all their time attending JDE specific sessions and talking to JDE customers and partners.  I focused on the keynotes and Oracle big picture sessions while fitting in as many JDE sessions […]

Salesforce.com CEO Mark Benioff has become the newest addition to the enemies of Ellison list. Benioff had paid a million dollars for the right to offer a speech at OpenWorld but was told late in the day before his presentation that it was being cancelled. Apparently, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison was worried that Benioff’s message […]

After two days OpenWorld could be called Oracle Hardware World since “engineered systems” is all that Oracle executives seem to want to talk about. The only other topic that has gotten any serious airtime so far is “big data”. A huge sign by the entrance to the main presentation hall declares: Oracle is big data. […]

OpenWorld was kicked off Sunday with the customary CEO presentation. Larry Ellison, however, is not in the habit of doing anything in a customary way. For the fourth year in a row the CEO chose to focus on only one facet Oracle’s complex business –hardware/software appliances, now called “engineered systems”. Oracle’s software offerings were only […]

OpenWorld begins this coming Sunday and, as usual, I will be there from start to finish. Oracle never telegraphs what is coming, especially what CEO Larry Ellison plans to address in his annual presentation. Recent years have seen Ellison personally focus on database appliances, especially since the Sun acquisition and that will almost certainly continue […]

        Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is famously elusive.  It is harder to get a private meeting with him than the Pope.  Outsiders, especially reporters and analysts, have almost no chance of ever meeting him.  Only the inner circle within Oracle itself ever has a real two-way dialog with Ellison.  There are, however, two proven ways […]

Quest’s annual Northeast conference, held last week at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, is always a great source of news, information and gossip.  This year was no exception.  There was no earth-shaking news about either JD Edwards or PeopleSoft, but the era when dramatic things happen to either of them is long past.  Instead, executives […]

Oracle proclaims itself to be the leader in the Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) market – an assertion that is hard to dispute given the imprecise way in which that acronym is used. Like all of its competitors, Oracle has its own unique vocabulary and associated definitions of the jargon and acronyms it uses. For those […]

Some retailers always rush things a bit by starting to sell Christmas items in September. In a similar way, Oracle likes to jump the gun by starting its Fiscal Year 2012 on June 1. This unusual schedule impacts the way Oracle interacts with its customers in a number of important ways. First, all energy in […]

One of the more intriguing aspects of the IT industry is that businesses are often both great friends and bitter enemies at the same time. Oracle and IBM provide a great example. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison could hardly have been more vitriolic in his attacks on IBM’s hardware business at OpenWorld last September. Ellison used […]

Oracle VP Lyle Ekdahl can be counted on to be entertaining whenever he makes a public appearance as he did Tuesday at Collaborate 2011.  His annual state of the union address to over 500 of the faithful was energetic, articulate and informative as usual.  His declaration that we are entering a “new era for ERP” […]

A JDE customer has told me that the local Oracle applications sales team is pushing his company hard to replace JDE with eBusiness Suite. In doing so the Oracle team has lost all credibility with this customer and has made serious enemies out of the many JDE advocates within his company. I have heard a […]

Every year I look forward to Collaborate, this year especially as I sit in Connecticut watching snow fall on April Fools Day. Orlando is certain to be nice this time of year, but my excitement about the event goes way beyond the prospect of finally feeling warm again. Every past trip to Collaborate has been […]

Oracle Fusion Applications were announced with great fanfare at an event at San Francisco City Hall over five years ago.  The announcement created a high enough level of concern and confusion that a year later Oracle introduced the concept of “Applications Unlimited” – a promise to keep the traditional applications (including JDE and PeopleSoft) viable […]

 Over 300 people attended the recent JD Edwards Partner Summit in Denver – a clear indication that the product line remains alive and well.  Most were from the US with a sprinkling of partners from each of the other regions around the world.  Everyone that I talked to echoed the same story – after a […]

 Speculation always seems to be fashionable at the start of a new year.  Why not engage in some regarding where Oracle is likely to focus its attention in 2011?  Before doing so, the obvious observation must be made that Oracle is currently on a roll. It appears to be poised for another year of growth, […]