Editorial Note: In a recent Oracle Blog, the author referenced how oil and gas companies across the globe have ERP systems that were first installed during Y2K. The author described these companies as using “legacy software”. An astute JD Edwards customer asked me the question “Is JD Edwards legacy”?

This is a great question deserving of something more than a quick response.

JD Edwards is not a single product but a product family comprised of two ERP suites—JD Edwards World and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne.

Let’s start with World. Is this legacy? In a word, absolutely. Why do I say that? JD Edwards World customers are quite small in absolute number. Of those customers, close to one third run World Release A7.3. Release A7.3 was first available in June 1996—more than 25 years ago. The ERP model 25 years ago was one where the products shipped were limited in business logic but also included robust (for the time) tooling that allowed customers to create business fit through build and customization. Actually customization was encouraged. In the case of World, the tooling was RPG, a high-level programming language for business applications introduced by IBM, which was originally released the same year as I was born, 1959.

But don’t let age fool you, what matters are the concepts of a World deployment. That deployment model is exactly what the author describes in the Oracle blog in question, “…outdated, costly and customized ERP system.”

There are companies who have decided to continue to run this two-and-a-half-decade old World software and therefore have neglected the benefits of more modern solutions. Their reasons include the economics of change, retraining users, retrofitting custom modifications and potential impact to their business processes. However, using legacy software is a dangerous decision that exposes the business to avoidable issues mostly related to technical obsolescence, including increasing maintenance costs, inadequate security, poor performance and an inferior user experience. Yes, they are using a legacy product.

But that is not the end of the explanation.

Now let’s fast forward to 2021. Over many releases Oracle has delivered innovative products in JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.2.6, or shorthand Release 22. EnterpriseOne 9.2 Release 22 is about as modern as you can get in terms of functional completeness, configurability and personalization over custom coding, automation and the latest in system interaction through low code, no code tools.

Is this legacy? No way! It is however traditional applications (not SaaS) in that you license the product and have a choice of where you want to run the product including in your own datacenter or lift and shift your lower level operations (network, compute, storage) to modern Infrastructure as a Service known as OCI (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure).

EnterpriseOne 9.2 Release 22 provides solutions available from modern ERP systems including:

  • Ability to continually differentiate your business via focused incrementally delivered innovation
  • Simplification of day-to-day operations and maintenance
  • Business transform into digital enterprises through innovative technologies
  • Reducing the effort required to consume new capabilities with continuous delivery
  • Enablement of all Oracle Cloud layers helping optimize, extend and complement your EnterpriseOne 9.2 solution

So now that we have laid out the two extremes of the response—yes World is legacy and no EnterpriseOne 9.2 is not legacy. Now let’s explore what I said about “…what matters are the concepts…” 

Because you have degrees of choice and flexibility with any JD Edwards deployment, if you take a World view (pun intended) of ERP and apply it to your migration to any new system (be it EnterpriseOne 9.2 or Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications) you are living in legacy land—new bottle, old wine.

I see this time and again and it is really disappointing. Customers carry forward too much from the source (legacy) to the target (modern) in a “technical upgrade” including old style customization, extension, modification, localization and integration (CEMLI) and business process (because we have always done it that way). This creates a barrier to new release adoption (which now comes quarterly in both traditional and SaaS), limiting responsiveness to the market and adoption of new technologies.

So there you have it. “Is JD Edwards considered legacy?” In short, the answer is yes, no, and depends on how you use it.

Today, software solutions advance at breakneck speed, launching new products and new application versions faster than customers can consume them. Constant software evolution and continuous adoption of new solutions provides the best outcomes possible, which translates into new features, stronger security levels, higher performance, and increased efficiency. Let’s connect to explore how Oracle can move you from legacy to modern.

Learn more about how JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.2 enables automation, optimization and transformation of your business.