Fujitsu Wednesday unveiled strides in its business integration offerings, announcing
a strategic partnership with Oracle .
The deal was consummated through one of Japan-based Fujitsu’s subsidiary
companies — Fujitsu Siemens Computers, a joint partnership of Fujitsu
Limited and Siemens AG — and comes a day after the release of the
latest version of Interstage, which is developed by Fujitsu Software
Corp., another Fujitsu Limited subsidiary.
Fujitsu Siemens’ deal with Oracle signals a deep commitment from both
sides, and will focus on joint marketing, development and
cross-licensing of Oracle’s Application Server 10g and Fujitsu Siemens’
openSEAS middleware program.
The deal works out well for both sides of the bargain: Oracle can tap
into Fujitsu Siemens’ expertise in integrating today’s applications with
yesterday’s legacy systems, putting both systems in one interface.
Oracle will sell openSEAS as an OEM
its application server.
Fujitsu Siemens’ middleware product now has a robust
application server to launch from; the company will resell and
distribute 10g Application Server.
Chuck Rozwat, Oracle server technologies executive vice president, said
the partnership helps companies reliant on their mainframe but needing
today’s latest applications to run their information.
“They need a simple, direct and cost-effective way of integrating legacy
and modern systems without having to re-write old code,” he said in a
statement Wednesday. “This partnership between Oracle and Fujitsu
Siemens Computers will provide them with exactly that.”
Both sides will fund the development program needed to integrate the two
software pieces.
In related news, Fujitsu Software unveiled its Interstage software suite, which includes Interstage includes deep embedding of XML through the applications,
making dynamic content a snap.
While the company may be a little late to the XML game — companies like
SAP , Oracle and PeopleSoft
have had
it included for some time — officials say their app is the first
enterprise-size toolkit for building and deploying apps based on the
extensible business reporting language (XBRL). The technology allows
for automatic compilation of financial data throughout the enterprise —
on any platform — and from the Internet.
“Their new implementation really continues their lead in that they are
focusing on Internet-based architectures around business process
management with very deep embedding of XML,” said Geoffrey Bock, senior
vice president at the Patricia Seybold Group.”
Despite the heavy marketing of integration software the past couple
years by large software vendors, Fujitsu Software has make relatively no
noise in the U.S. markets. Many businesses have no idea the standalone
software maker also makes business application suites.
Bock attributes that to the Japanese company’s approach to marketing,
which he said was distinctly Oriental in nature, meaning keeping a quiet
profile.
“But just because you don’t have good marketing doesn’t mean you don’t
have a good product,” he said. “They’ve always been a sleeper, but
they’ve had a very strong presence in Japan and a software beach head on
the West Coast for at least 10 years.”
