Some great news for everyone - Release 12 of Oracle Applications is now Generally Available! We are all really pleased to see this go out to customers, and really happy with the quality and the functionality that we have in there. There is a launch event with John Wookey and Charles Phillips for everyone who is interested. There are lots of details about the new functionality on all products on metalink, but why not check out Steven Chan's blog for details of that.
From the perspective of my team, there are several great things in particular about this milestone release;
1) We have been working hard on this functionality for several years, with great new features in Core HR, like global transfers, and checklists. We know that many people are really keen to use these new features, and it makes it all worthwhile when we see people benefiting from the things that we have produced.
2) We don't have to keep apologising to customer for not being able to discuss R12 dates. We don't like that, and we know you don't like it either. But we have to do it for legal things like SOX. It does lead to some fun conversations, like this one though;
ME: Frightfully sorry, but I'm not allowed to comment on that.
CUSTOMER: OK, so when's Fusion going to be released?
ME: That's easy. We are currently targeting 2008
CUSTOMER: And can I upgrade from R12 to Fusion?
ME: Yes, we are planning to allow upgrades to Fusion from 11.5.10 and from R12, as well as some E patch levels too.
CUSTOMER: Great, so obviously R12 has to be out before Fusion in 2008 if you are going to allow me to upgrade from it.
ME: Please don't get me fired by making me acknowledge that.
3) We can now really start to concentrate on Fusion, which is our opportunity to not just add new features that you are interested in, but to re-architect the system to not just suit the HCM business space the way it is today, but the way it will be in 5 years time. We have some great vision of where the area is going, with increased globalization, and even higher expectations for system integration and maintainability, and we have some great plans for how to get there. Release 12 is a great step along that road for customers, featuring much of the Fusion tech stack, and I would encourage everyone to look to moving to that release over the coming months.
