Oracle Corp. this week plans to unveil an extensive upgrade of the once-moribund World ERP suite, fulfilling promises made to users after its acquisition of PeopleSoft Inc.The World software had been slotted for obsolescence by its original owner, J.D. Edwards & Co., but Oracle changed that plan after gaining ownership with its 2005 purchase of PeopleSoft. Oracle at the time promised World users that it would make a significant commitment to the application line.The new World A9.1 software, expected to be announced during Oracle’s Collaborate 2007 user conference in Las Vegas this week, will feature some 1,250 enhancements, including a new interface and service-oriented architecture (SOA) capabilities.

LaSalle Bristol Corp. has been testing the A9.1 suite since January, and its IT staffers have been impressed by the test upgrade’s ease of use, said Michael Caldwell, vice president of information systems. The Elkhart, Ind.-based maker of home furnishing products currently runs World 7.3 to support its accounting and manufacturing processes. File conversion to A9.1 was simple, Caldwell said.The company hopes to start work on the full implementation of the new version later this month, he added.

LaSalle is particularly interested in the release’s new warranty functions, which promise to help companies fulfill service and support commitments after products are sold, Caldwell said.

Some IT staffers at Matanuska Telephone Association Inc. in Palmer, Alaska, plan to attend Collaborate to discuss the capabilities of the new software with early adopters, said Gary Riley, a business systems analyst at the telephone service provider. 

Although interested in an upgrade, Matanuska doesn’t want to lose the “rock solid” capabilities of the World A7.3 suite it currently runs, said Riley. “We hope to enhance its abilities without losing its best attributes,” he said.John Schiff, vice president and general manager of J.D. Edwards World at Oracle, called the new version “probably the most significant release of World in 10 years.” The A9.1 suite will run on IBM iSeries hardware, formerly known as the AS/400, and the DB2 database, the same as all previous versions of World, he said.

The new version includes a Java-based interface that can be integrated with desktop tools such as Microsoft Excel, making them more productive, said Schiff. Oracle will offer users either the product’s traditional green-screen interface or a new Web-based point-and-click one that is customizable, he added.

The SOA technology will allow the application to be easily linked to non-World applications to facilitate interactions with customers and partners, Schiff said. A9.1 also has tools to ease the proc­ess of migrating from older World systems to the new version, he said.

Predrag Jakovljevic, an analyst at Technology Evaluation Centers Inc., a consulting firm in Montreal, said the World upgrade indicates that Oracle is doing a better-than-expected job of enhancing applications it has acquired.

However, Jakovljevic said he hopes that Oracle will better explain how the World applications fit into the plan for the company’s next-generation Fusion application suite.

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