Another Oracle Modern Supply Chain Experience (MSCE) Conference has come and gone. For some reason, as I attended the conference, I kept having flashes of Kevin Bacon in Animal House trying to calm the frenzied crowd proclaiming “All is Well! Remain Calm”. Hopefully I won’t be trampled by a hysterical crowd, or if we are up for puns, a “hysterical cloud” when I proclaim – regarding the conference and Agile PLM – that “All is well. Remain Calm”. During the conference, there were many positive indications from Oracle that our current Product Lifecycle Management offerings will remain viable for the foreseeable future and there are encouraging signs of life from Oracle’s cloud-based PLM offerings. In this blog, I will review the highs and the lows from my perspective during this event.
I will start with a bit of history regarding this event. Prior to acquisition by Oracle, Agile Software hosted a user conference titled “Agility”. This event was usually well attended by companies using the software and there was always a good mix of customer presentations and useful technical content directly from the company. The events were high-spirited and they were considered valuable in building a strong user community and communicating the future direction of the company. When Oracle purchased Agile they attempted to fold this event in to Oracle’s massive OpenWorld event. The first one was held in a hotel in San Francisco during the OpenWorld event, which usually involves over 60,000 attendees from 145 companies. As you can imagine, Agile kind of got lost in the shuffle. The presentations were limited and the cost and challenge of coming to the event really didn’t work very well for the PLM Partners. A couple of years after the acquisition, an attempt was made to recapture the essence of the old “Agility” events and a smaller version of the show was launched from a hotel in San Francisco in the Winter/Spring timeframe. Specific Agile partners were recruited and the event was filled with Agile Customer presentations and Technical presentations from Oracle Agile Product Managers. The event was very successful and was eventually moved to San Jose and expanded to encompass many of Oracle’s Supply Chain Offerings. This year’s event, I believe, was the fifth one since it was brought back under the Oracle brand.
I have attended all of the Oracle Modern Supply Chain events and even attended a couple of the “Agility” events, so I do have some perspective on how the events have changed over the years and what these changes mean for the future of PLM at Oracle. There has been some speculation by analysts in the industry that with the advent of the cloud and point solutions and integration frameworks, that the category of PLM could become obsolete. While I do agree that terminologies can become semantic, I seriously doubt that the need for PLM applications will wane, although adoption approaches may shift to capitalize on the new direction of technology. This year’s show is somewhat reflective of that in that there are some subtle shifts in Oracle’s messaging around PLM. You also see some of the partner messaging and product offerings shifting towards the new reality. The main takeaway per my title is that the status quo PLM technology at Oracle, Agile PLM, is still very much a critical ingredient in Oracle’s go-to-market strategy and continues to be well supported. The attendance to the show was in line with previous years along with the number of vendors exhibiting, and I failed to detect any hints of Agile PLM’s demise. Oracle released a new version of the on-premise offering (9.3.6) and provided a roadmap for future releases. Granted, the ambition for the future is shifting more and more toward the cloud offerings, but there is still significant resource responsible for supporting the product at Oracle. Oracle does seem more inclined to allow partners to step in and shoulder some responsibilities for modernizing Agile and addressing some specific customer needs. Oracle was happy to spotlight some of our solutions at the show as well as other partners’. This has not been the case at previous shows where Oracle tended to focus more on highlighting the value driven specifically by their PLM modules.
I did have the opportunity to sit down with Gary Goldhawk who is Vice President of North American PLM Sales at Oracle. He was very bullish on the new releases of Oracle Cloud-based PLM solution and expressed a sentiment that within the next six months, this offering will be able to provide new customers with similar capabilities to on-premise core Agile PLM. Oracle announced a new Quality Module available to complement the Product Portfolio Solution and Product Development and Innovation Management solutions already in the market. All of these solutions are complemented by Oracle’s Product Data Hub which figured prominently in several customer and corporate presentations. Speaking off the record, several Oracle technical and sales resources expressed cautious optimism regarding Oracle’s future PLM offerings on the cloud, but releases in April and June will need to fulfill their promise for these solutions to capture new clients. The impression I get from Oracle today is that Agile will continue to be supported, but the focus going forward will be to enhance the cloud offerings to become viable alternatives to on-premise technology. There will also be opportunities to leverage both platforms and to create hybrid solutions that allow companies to experience the best both on-premise and cloud platforms can offer. This approach will be supported and enhanced by Oracle partners.
It does seem the industry is moving away from the single overarching PLM platform towards a best in breed approach. Oracle is rolling out their cloud offerings as standalone solutions that can work together and can also be integrated into existing on-premise solutions. This allows companies to focus on value return and to use these applications to address specific business needs. I was afraid that my experience at MSCE was going to be more like another Kevin Bacon scene from Animal House. Fortunately, there were no “Thank you sir, may I have another” moments and I think Oracle will be providing their clients with solutions that are relevant and beneficial while continuing to support existing platforms, so please try and remain calm despite the breathless messaging by agitators. PLM and Oracle’s PLM are fine. I’d love to read your comments and whether or not you agree with my perspective, especially the future of PLM.
We will be highlighting our content from MSCE over the next few weeks. Please sign up for our MSCE recap series which will include a joint presentation with Perception Software/Altium and Cisco (March 9th), as well as a client presentation from medical device developer Teleflex (March 23rd). We will also be offering the training class we conducted at MSCE on making Agile cloud-friendly, and other information and product briefings presented at the conference, so stay tuned. You can always check our homepage and events blog for current events and registration information.
