[Nov 8, 2007 Update:  Vista is now certified with IE 7 for E-Business Suite Release 11i and 12.  See this article for full details.]

[Oct 11, 2007:  See the latest Update #5: Vista Certification with the E-Business Suite]

I’ve been receiving questions from a relatively small number of large enterprise customers who are planning Vista upgrades for their end-users.  Unfortunately, I have no information that I can share about certification dates, either publicly or off-the-record, for reasons I’ve discussed in the past.  But I can give you an update on our progress.

Microsoft Vista Logo:


What Does Certification Mean?

The deceptively-simple phrase, “Certification of the E-Business Suite on Vista” actually hides a great deal of complexity.  This certification covers two major E-Business Suite releases — Versions 11i and 12.  Depending on who’s counting, there are between 200 to 240 products to be tested.  In additional to base functional testing, additional tests are required for MLS languages, including right-to-left multi-byte / Unicode character sets.  Each set of tests performed need to be duplicated for both Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Each of these releases have three parts that need to be tested:
  1. Oracle Forms-based components of the E-Business Suite running in Sun’s Java Runtime Environment (JRE) plug-in on Vista, for both IE7 & Firefox
  2. HTML/Javascript-based components of the E-Business Suite running in IE7/Firefox
  3. Client/server administration components of the E-Business Suite running on Vista
Iterative Testing Cycles

It’s very important to remember that all technology certifications are inherently iterative. 
Any issues found and fixed in the course of testing may cause some or all of these activities to restart from the very beginning.  For example, a Vista compatibility issue discovered and fixed downstream in Release 12 may require fixes to be backported to 11i.  Such fixes will trigger retesting in both releases.

The iterative nature of these types of certifications makes it extremely difficult to predict certification dates accurately.

Progress Report:  Where We Are Today

I can fill you in on some background on what we’ve done so far:
  • We had conducted early pre-certification tests with Vista release candidates last year.  These went well, for the most part.
  • Our Vista certification was hung up when we discovered that a serious focus-related issue in Sun’s JRE occurs in Vista, too.
  • Sun has just released JRE 1.5.0_12.  This appears to contain the fix we’ve been waiting for.
Our Vista certifications have now restarted in earnest.  We have passed the first two of approximately five certification rounds for Vista for Release 11i. 

Next steps will include automated regression testing of all E-Business Suite products, additional manual testing of advanced flows for selected E-Business Suite products, and testing of selected configurations involving internationalization and non-English languages. 

All of these certification tests will need to be repeated for Release 12.

Your Feedback is Important

We’re working closely with Microsoft on this certification.  I meet with them several times a month to discuss technical issues.

This has visibility at the highest executive levels in both of our respective organizations, so this certification effort has been prioritized accordingly.  Both Oracle and Microsoft are highly motivated to complete this certification as soon as possible.

Oracle and Microsoft have been pooling lists of our shared customers waiting for this certification.   So far, we have only heard from approximately 60 customers planning this migration.  I suspect that this may not be representative of the real scope of impact. 

If you haven’t already sent me your plans for upgrading your E-Business Suite uses to Vista, please post a comment or drop me an email to get visibility for your organization’s requirements.   As part of our ongoing prioritization activities, it would be helpful for us to understand your plans for adopting Windows Vista, specifically:
  1. When will your organization first start conducting trials of Vista? 
  2. Which Vista editions will you be deploying?
  3. When will Vista be rolled out to the majority of your desktops?  How many desktops?
  4. When will you need Vista to be certified with Release 11i?
  5. When will you need Vista to be certified with Release 12?
The above is intended to outline our general product direction.  It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract.   It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decision.  The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Oracle’s products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.