After Oracle’s move in 2000 from client/server to Web-based applications with its E-Business Suite 11i—a notoriously buggy technology shift—the company isn’t taking any chances with its next big development undertaking.
Oracle, based in Redwood Shores, Calif., has implemented a zero-defect policy for Fusion Applications, its next-generation suite of ERP (enterprise resource planning) applications expected in 2008.
“We don’t think any bugs are acceptable,” said John Wookey, the senior vice president at Oracle in charge of application development. “Getting it right in the first version is extremely important to us. That’s an engineering issue, not something that’s random at all.”
The difference between 11i development and Fusion, according to Wookey, is that it has been shaped by a tremendous amount of learning along the way, as well as a bit of foresight. “We haven’t thought about quality late in the game,” he said. “It’s something we thought about right from the beginning.”
Fusion came about as the result of a confluence of events: Oracle’s need to merge the “best of” functionality from the PeopleSoft and JD Edwards suites (and later Siebel Systems) after an intense 18-month battle to acquire PeopleSoft, which was itself in the process of digesting its JD Edwards acquisition; and the emergence of SOA (service-oriented architecture) as the next big technology trend.
Read the full story on eWEEK.com: Oracle Implements Zero-Defect Policy for Fusion
