April 18, 2007

Project X—and Another Project

A year ago Oracle announced Applications Unlimited, a plan to continue support and enhancement of its separate product lines (including PeopleSoft), even beyond the release of the new, combined product offering (Fusion). This week another announcement: Project X, a new integration framework that is supposed to allow customers to stitch together their various existing applications (PeopleSoft, Siebel, etc.) without migrating to Fusion.

Is Oracle backing away from the push to Fusion? It's not saying exactly that, but that seems to be some of the speculation. It might be a little more mundane than a change in direction. Maybe Oracle sees that its customers like the existing products and don't want to make the commitment to an entirely new product line. So we appear to have come full circle. First, PeopleSoft was to be acquired and its customers all migrated to Oracle products. Later, it was announced that PeopleSoft would be supported for a while; then the support was extended to 2013. Then it was extended sort-of-indefinitely. And now Project X, officially called Application Integration Architecture, backs up the extended support commitment.

Some time ago, I wrote about a few of the challenges faced by independent contract consultants and their clients in this post: Contractors on PeopleSoft Projects. It seemed to me that there must be a better way for contractors and clients to find each other while avoiding the large overhead costs they currently pay. Yes, companies can use one of the many "monstrous" job boards, but that can be a "dicey" proposition. Many prefer a more controlled approach using traditional recruiting firms. But they often take a large cut of the rate, even if they just gather random resumes from the internet. Companies could turn to one of the large consulting firms, but their costs will then soar. Isn't there a better way?

I think so, and we've put something together to make it possible. I'll discuss it more fully next week. In the meantime, if you are interested...
     This new site is for independent contractors, and
     This new site is for the companies that hire them.

Until next time...