Jireh sent a team to the InSync Oracle applications and technology conference in Melbourne earlier this week. Here are our initial reflections on what we saw - most of this is not new, but it is great to see it being so clearly reinforced:

• in the Oracle applications keynote a significant portion of the content focussed on JDE - indicating that Oracle continues to be committed to JDE (they have an increasingly broad range of applications in their portfolio, not just JDE);
• Oracle is continuing to invest in JD Edwards EnterpriseOne - Gary Grieshaber (Senior Director, Product Strategy for JDE globally) highlighted that new releases are in development, following 15 EnterpriseOne releases already since Oracle acquired JDE with the PeopleSoft purchase in 2005;
• Oracle is continuing to invest in JD Edwards World - Gary also pointed out they have made 2 World releases since acquiring the product (the first World releases since 1997!) and a further release is currently in development;
• JDE EnterpriseOne and JDE World continue to be a close fit with the size and types of organisations typically found in New Zealand (and Australia);
• there is ongoing strong marketplace interest in JDE in this part of the world - there were approximately 750 people at the conference, including a doubling of JDE attendees since last year;
• IBM and Oracle made a joint announcement of a new i Platform offering that directly competes with the Intel market on pricing;
• apart from being an interesting announcement in it's own right the new IBM i Platform offering is an indication from Oracle that they continue to be committed to the JDE EnterpriseOne multi-platform strategy;
• there was a strong partner presence at the conference - services partners like Jireh and partners with products that integrate with the Oracle applications;
• Oracle Fusion is a very interesting story and should be considered by all JDE customers - whether that be the Middleware part of the Oracle Fusion story and/or Fusion Applications.

If you would like to discuss this further please contact:

• Mark Elley, Director of Technology Consulting, +64 (27) 672 5126, mark.elley@jireh.net.nz
• Gavin Knight, Director of Business Consulting, +64 (21) 428 059, gavin.knight@jireh.net.nz
• Kaz Handa, Director of Business Development, +64 (27) 672 5125, kaz.handa@jireh.net.nz