Oracle cements roadmap for regional JD Edwards customers

Encompassing the newest releases such as JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12, the support offering was one of a number of commitments the company made to its many small and medium-sized business customers across the Middle East., alongside key partner IBM and other customers and partners.

With a legacy of more than 10 years in the region, JD Edwards has a robust base of customers across the Middle East that are in the transitional period of growth from small to medium size and are looking to their technology partners to help enable this transition. As a flexible single suite, with low cost of ownership and clear return on investment, JD Edwards has enjoyed significant market share. The commitment made by the company today to provide a clear roadmap for the suite aims to protect the investments made by these regional customers as they continue to grow.

"Partnering with IBM and systems integrators such as Systime to deliver an upgrade strategy and ongoing roadmap to our customers clearly demonstrates our commitment to our customers' success as they grow in size," commented Ayman Abouseif, managing director, Oracle Gulf States.

"JD Edwards EnterpriseOne customers now have the option to choose from their existing partner vendors, or continue on the JD Edwards path, including the Oracle Technology Foundation - a tightly integrated and complete infrastructure based on the industry-leading Oracle Database and Oracle Fusion Middleware. Oracle has a long-term commitment to our customers in the Middle East, and today's event is vital in communicating the options and upgrades as they are introduced."

The event, which attracted more than 60 participants to Dubai's JW Marriott, featured firsthand experience in deploying and growing a business through JD Edwards, presented by Emirates Catering Company. IBM and Systime presented on the partnerships that JD Edwards customers can leverage to maximize their infrastructure investment.

"Working closely with Oracle enables our joint customers to benefit from both companies' investments in developing applications that serve the market," said Wael Abdoush, IBM Systems and Technology Group Manager, Middle East, Egypt and Pakistan. "We're building on our close collaboration with Oracle to deliver solutions that help our clients simplify their IT environment and drive business innovation."

Built on a JD Edwards-IBM partnership that spans over 29 years, IBM and Oracle are working closely together to support the JD Edwards user community, with continued development of JD Edwards products on the IBM 'System i' platform which offers benefits to SMB companies such as masking the complexity of IT operations.

Systime has had a number of successful implementations of JD Edwards including customers such as Al Tayer Group, Majed Al Futtaim Group, Jumbo Electronics and Emirates Flight catering Company. "We were delighted to join this forum to communicate our ongoing commitment to delivering excellent return on investment for the small and medium-sized business community with JD Edwards business software," commented John Issa, general manager, Systime ME FZCO. "Our long history working with the company has delivered huge benefits to our customers across the Middle East for over 10 years, and we hope that this roadmap will ensure that this continues for many years."