Under a plan announced Wednesday, Oracle is expanding the range of training and technical resources available to members of its Oracle PartnerNetwork. The program is designed to help developers use service oriented architectures to create composite applications that connect with Oracle's new enterprise offerings through Oracle's Fusion middleware.
Among other things, OPN's 1,500 members will have access to architectural reviews by Oracle technical experts, integration testing, best practices tutoring, and how-to guides. The goal is to make it easier for software developers to build applications that work within Oracle ERP software such as Oracle E-Business Suite and PeopleSoft Enterprise.
Oracle needs such programs to entice more developers to write software that runs on its Fusion middleware. According to Gartner Dataquest, Oracle holds 8.7% of the worldwide middleware market, trailing BEA Systems, which holds 14.5%, and market leader IBM, which has captured 37.2%.
Oracle on Wednesday gave its full line of enterprise software a major facelift -- unveiling Oracle E-Business Suite 12, PeopleSoft Enterprise 9, Siebel CRM 8, and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12. JD Edwards World A9.1 is due out later this year.
The updates fulfill the promise Oracle made before closing its contentious PeopleSoft acquisition two years ago: It would continue developing its acquired applications and meet roadmaps for next-generation releases.