It might seem a little anachronistic, but this really is a new certification announcement: Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 is now certified with Safari 3 with the Java 5 plug-in on Apple Mac OS X 10.5 ("Leopard") and 10.5 ("Tiger") desktop operating systems.
Prerequisites
- Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.0.4 or higher, including 12.1.1
- Safari 3.2.1
- Java 1.5.0_x
Other Mac Certifications Still Underway
Certifications for the Safari 4 browser are still underway. We also have plans to certify Mac OS X 10.6 ("Snow Leopard") for both Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i and 12. I don't have firm schedules for either of these certifications yet, but you're welcome to monitor or subscribe to this blog for updates.
Is Your Organisation Running Mac OS X?
Apple users can be pretty vocal, so I'm a bit surprised by the lack of notable escalations over the delays in getting this particular certification out. This is even more surprising considering the efficiency of Apple's Software Updates tool, which pushed out Safari 3 in early 2008 and Safari 4 a few months ago.
I've previously written about my impression that Macs are creeping into the enterprise. This is true within Oracle, where there is a growing number of people (including myself) who have opted buy Macs out of their own pocket instead of going with Oracle's WinTel procurement process.
My anecdotal impressions aren't backed by a large amount of data yet, but I'd like to correct that. If your organisation has end-users running Mac OS X connecting to the E-Business Suite, we'd be interested in hearing from you. Detailed information from you can help us make prioritization decisions for desktop platform certifications. Feel free to post a comment or drop me a private email with details about:
- Your EBS release
- Number of Mac clients
- OS X versions deployed
- Browsers versions deployed
References
- Oracle Applications Release Notes Release 12 for Apple Macintosh OS X 10.5 (Note 864552.1)
- Oracle Applications Release Notes Release 12 for Apple Macintosh OS X 10.4 (Note 402138.1)
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Comments (4)
Hi Steven,
My previous organization didn't have a formal OS X support policy, and the unofficial policy was "if you can make it work, great, otherwise..." That said, the few people with Macs that needed to use E-Business Suite were often willing to switch to Firefox, or were already using it as a primary browser.
I suspect that the relative lack of Safari-related escalations can be attributed to a cohort of users that are already accustomed to finding "workarounds" to shoehorn their Macs into their enterprise lives.
Posted by John Piwowar | August 6, 2009 6:01 PM
Posted on August 6, 2009 18:01
Hi, John,
Thanks for the insight into your previous organizations practices. I think you're right about the "culture of resilience," too. My theory is that this is augmented by the increased use of virtualization tools like Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion, which allow Mac users to run WinXP and Vista directly.... less work to shoehorn.
Regards,
Steven
Posted by Steven Chan
|
August 10, 2009 10:01 AM
Posted on August 10, 2009 10:01
Our enterprise introduced Mac support about 2 years ago. We currently run about 400 Macs, mostly laptops. We have recently deployed the Oracle Time and Labor (OTL) module in 11i environment (our first EBS module that touches the whole enterprise). Our Mac community is not at all happy that they have to use Windows systems to access the Time & Labor module (most run OSX 10.5 and prefer Firefox as the browser). Mac support in EBS would be quite helpful.
I might suggest, given the fact that EBS client certification seems to get delayed so often by Java issues with the webforms, that Oracle consider a 2-tier EBS client certification approach. Tier 1 would be the existing, full functionality certification that includes webforms support and Tier 2 would be HTML/OA Framework only certification - no webforms support (and no clientside Java requirement). We have many OTL only users who use non-certified web browsers that work with the HTML side without problems.
Thanks.
Posted by T Ackenhusen | August 12, 2009 6:57 PM
Posted on August 12, 2009 18:57
Hello, T Ackenhusen,
Thanks for the insight into your enterprise's use of Macs. This is very helpful.
As a Mac user myself, I can appreciate that having to use Windows to access OTL can be frustrating for your users. We've considered different methods for n-tier certifications over the years. On the plus side, as you point out, such approaches can allow us to release more certifications more quickly. The downsides, however, are that such fine-grained certification distinctions are often ignored or missed by customers, which results in misunderstandings and escalations about things that customers think are supported... but really aren't.
Our Safari certifications are ripe for reevaluation, though, and I'll raise this suggestion internally for discussion.
Regards,
Steven
Posted by Steven Chan
|
August 14, 2009 1:57 PM
Posted on August 14, 2009 13:57