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Do not mistake the announcement
that Oracle is now offering Google Maps as part of its eBusiness suite
of customer relationship management (CRM) applications as just another
Google Maps mashup. The news that Oracle is using the Google Maps
application programming interface (API) with the Oracle eBusiness Field
Service solution is generating as much hype internally as externally.
"My email has been flooded with interest," said Guy Waterman, Oracle's
senior director for Product Management, referring to how he has
received numerous emails from other Oracle product groups wanting to
know more.
I think bells should be going off everywhere. "Hello, enterprise! You don't have to jump through hoops to see your data on a map anymore!" But then there is the more nuanced interpretation that Oracle, as a company, just got mapping religion. Why it took the company more than ten years to do so since the launch of Oracle Spatial, is just a small matter of market development. This particular development between Oracle and Google was based on a customer requirement. Given the history of successful of desktop GIS, the technology has obviously made inroads into enterprise applications in the past. However, the fact that Google has stomped its big foot into the mapping business is not lost on those who are outsiders to the geospatial technology sector. Seeing the familiar Google Map with an enterprise application looks revolutionary to them. As an example, read the Tuesday July 31, 2007 issue of the Wall Street Journal. Two articles ("Searching for Clients from Above" by Kevin Delaney and "Mashups' Sew Data Together" by Ben Worthen) in the Marketplace section of the paper focused on using both Google Maps and Microsoft Live Search Maps to support business applications and the ability to create mashups. "Location Intelligence is advancing forward as enterprise and consumer technology mash up together like that from Oracle and Google. We should expect that as these technologies mature and bridge together, we can find more benefits for business users," said Mark Smith, CEO and executive vice president of research at Ventana Research. Oracle has many applications in its quiver that might leverage the Google Maps API and many of them are going to hit a huge target of potential users who need to consume location-based information. But it took an announcement like this, in which Oracle looks to be doing business with Google, to arouse such a large organization. In fact, I see this announcement as an extremely significant catalyst that will broaden the market development for the integration of enterprise IT solutions with location technology. Waterman said as much, as he listed a number of applications such as marketing, asset management and sales data that can be displayed on a map. Waterman is in charge of other eBusiness CRM applications, including the Siebel Field Service application, a part of Oracle's Fusion effort. Fusion is a company-wide initiative by Oracle to integrate and develop the best of breed applications from the acquisitions of Siebel and JD Edwards. Customers can expect not only further enhancements to existing software but also an eventual merging of applications with this program. In addition, Waterman believes that CRM is the application with the highest number of users who will consume mobile data, for which location-based information is vitally important. Put it all together and you can see that Oracle intends to expose many more users to maps in its applications. Oracle Spatial, then, becomes the hammer that drives even more analytical functionality should the customer need it. Waterman indicated that more and more customers are asking for mapping functionality as "[maps are] not a base requirement but a +1 requirement," referring to the fact that mapping technology is a feature that is very high on the list of "extras." Conclusion There appears to be not only increased client demand, but also internal demand from Oracle product groups that want to use maps. With the addition of Google Maps, the result is a near perfect storm that could generate huge market awareness for spatially enabled applications at the enterprise level. With Google Maps as a basic mapping interface or with a more robust solution employing Oracle Spatial, the market for location intelligent solutions is about to get a huge boost. And Oracle may be sitting in the middle of it all. More about this author... |
