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Fusion Apps questions Oracle should answer

Oracle appears set to deliver more information than ever before about its long-awaited Fusion Applications at the OpenWorld conference in September, with more than 30 sessions listed as of Tuesday.

Fusion Applications are supposed to combine the best attributes of Oracle's various application lines into a next-generation suite. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has said they will make their initial debut sometime this year, and many observers are expecting a release announcement at OpenWorld.

The conference sessions include deep-dives into individual Fusion modules, the suite's architectural underpinnings and its pervasive use of BI (business intelligence).

While the presentations will apparently include a wealth of granular detail about the software, OpenWorld also presents a crucial opportunity for Oracle to educate customers on some broader aspects of the Fusion launch, according to some users and analysts.

"The big thing for me is the deployment strategy," said Forrester Research analyst Paul Hamerman.

Ellison told last year's OpenWorld audience that Fusion Applications are built to be deliverable as SaaS (software as a service). But it is not clear if Oracle itself will sell all the applications this way, Hamerman said.

"I think that Oracle's just not ready to jump into SaaS too much, really, for financial reasons," he said. "Ellison's on record saying nobody's making any money with SaaS, and it's pretty much true."

Fusion Applications will obviously be sold in on-premises form as well as via hosting services like Oracle's own On Demand division, Hamerman added. But it may be up to partners to deliver the software as true multi-tenant SaaS, which provides cost savings and cuts management chores, since multiple customers share the same application instance.