[General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion

Fri Jan 18 22:59:59 +03 2008

bashar abdullah wrote:
> Well Majed I personally haven't worked on an Oracle implementation, but 
> I heard it's good depending on the implementer. So if you've got some 
> other opinion or suggestion, please tell me about CRM, HR, and Finance 
> ones you know. I based my statement on other user reviews who seemed to 
> just love it. I think SAP is already suggested, so I will give it more 
> thought. Thanks

The problem with any large deployment like ERP is that the 'proof is in 
the implementation'. If your implementation team (ie, the company you 
hired and their highly-paid, suit-wearing consultants) don't know their 
ass from their elbow, then no matter what software technology or vendor 
is behind the product, the implementation will stink.

Of course, the other side of this coin is that which company makes it:

1. Easy to create cross-integrated components and
2. Makes it difficult to create "bad" implementations or integrations.

What I know about Oracle implementations as I have been called on to 
consult on a few projects revolving around Oracle Financials and HR:

1. Upfront costs are quite staggering for Oracle compared to other 
implementations (like iscala or even SAP).

2. The quality of your deployment lies solely on the skills of your 
integrator; you might think that this is the 'norm' but some enterprise 
stacks make it very easy for you to create cohesive implementations that 
work -- while others make it very easy for you to goof it up and it will 
still 'work'. The difference between the two comes when you are trying 
to calculate the long term ROI (which by the way, a lot of companies 
don't do here -- strange, but true).

3. Amount of in-house talent required differs greatly. With Oracle; what 
you really need is a good DBA and a Java wizard to handle any front-end 
bugs -- both some would argue are easy to find.

I am personally not a fan of Oracle; they are pushy and overbearing. 
Have a costly product and they try to get you to bet the farm on their 
technology; a lot of their promises are still vaporware. I attended a 
seminar where Oracle was talking about their integration 'stack'; which 
would allow interoperability between various operating systems and the 
oracle backend; basically, their version of SSO. So your marketing 
manager with his Mac can use his system password to logon to your ERP 
backend.  I attended this seminar to find out what Oracle was doing in 
this space since at that time one of my clients was playing around with 
the idea of integrating their various logins using some SSO framework.

As I expected, their framework is only of use to those that have already 
invested (heavily) in the Oracle e-business suite; and for others that 
would like just the SSO framework, the support was pitiful at best. So I 
ended up advising my client against going for the Oracle solution 
especially since they were a very small operation (25 users).

As for your request regarding other suggestions for ERP, let me give you 
two opinions based on my experience. Every business and every 
implementation is different but I find that if you keep these two points 
in mind from the outset, then your end result will be better for you and 
your client.

1. Not every company *needs* and ERP implementation; but every 
CEO/CIO/____ wants a ERP implementation because they feel this is some 
magic bullet that will cure their operational and strategic forecasting 
woes. So before you advise your clients to go down this path, make sure 
they understand what ERP is .. and more importantly, what ERP is *not*. 
A lot of times my clients are just swimming in the marketing brochure 
hype of ERP integration and respond with words like "long term 
visibility" and "integration dashboards" and "information workers" 
without knowing exactly what all that means.  Sometimes, what all is 
required is a refactoring of the business process and a good reporting 
framework.

2. Not every ERP-nail requires the giant Oracle hammer; especially in 
the SMB market. There are a lot of other ERP vendors that target SMB 
specifically and these should not be discounted. A lot of times their 
value is in their experience in dealing exclusively with SMB and offer 
quite a tailored fit to the business. iScala, Compiere and Focus are 
some that come to mind.

My 0.002.5 fils (accounting for inflation)
--
Burhan

> 
> Facebook and Google cross-sharing info, that's really scary now. If 
> things go correct without infringing on user privacy, this could be 
> really brilliant, as I personally hate locking my profile in one place. 
> The statement "where users can take their data from the websites they 
> use to reuse elsewhere" gives a bit of relief, if they really intend to 
> follow it. Meaning that I CAN move my profile. It's very much different 
> than my profile IS MOVED. Better keep an eye on those things
> 
> 
> On Jan 18, 2008 1:46 PM, Majed B. <majedb at gmail.com 
> <mailto:majedb at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     "And since the best enterprise solutions for HR, Finance, CRM, and
>     others all come from Oracle after these acquisitions"
>     The best?! I pretty much doubt that! Oracle stinks at integrating
>     its numerous modules, and you'd be one of the few lucky people in
>     the world who got a working well-integrated implementation! And if
>     you're talking abut Oracle's Fusion, so far, it's still vaporware.
>     They're promising and promising, but we still don't see anything!!
> 
>     Last year, my company started an ERP system implementation of SAP.
>     The year before that, we had 3 consultants digging info & comparing
>     between Oracle & SAP. Price-wise & technology-wise, SAP had all the
>     advantages. Even their various modules integrate like a breeze.
> 
>     Regarding Plaxo, I heard it from a friend who uses OpenID like air!
>     So I took it for granted, but after you asked, I checked around and
>     found no solid proof of that, only rumors. Even Plaxo's "About Us"
>     page, mentions nothing of any acquisitions, or share buyouts. [
>     http://www.google.com/search?q=facebook+site%3Aplaxo.com&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
>     <http://www.google.com/search?q=facebook+site%3Aplaxo.com&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8>]
> 
>     On another note, Google & Facebook had joined DataPortability.org
>     [http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/goog-fb-data.php], allowing
>     data to be moved between different *networks*. Maybe this is where
>     privacy issues should rise? Is data kept on the older network? What
>     if you moved, and someone else took your old name, do they get your
>     history/data?
> 
>     More on that DataPortability.org thing here:
>     http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=facebook+google+openID&btnG=Search
>     <http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=facebook+google+openID&btnG=Search>
>     -- 
>           Majed B.
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> 
> 
> 
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