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Oracle to Close EH&S Gap by Partnering With ESS
On 23 September 2008, at Oracle OpenWorld 2008, Oracle and the environmental health and safety software provider (EH&S) ESS announced an alliance to deliver an integrated solution for EH&S compliance and sustainability. The solution will combine Oracle Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) Manager, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, and elements of ESS' Essential Suite solution. The companies jointly outlined the architecture, functionality and support plans for the solution, although they did not announce a firm delivery date.
Analysis
This announcement should be welcome news to Oracle GRC customers as they begin to view the convergence of EH&S with generalized GRC. Current business imperatives related to greenhouse gas tracking/management and environmental compliance have moved the topic to the forefront for many CEOs, CFOs and CIOs. This alliance has the potential to fill a competitive gap between Oracle and SAP.
The details released at Oracle OpenWorld represent a viable approach to integrating the products. Given the number of joint Oracle customers now using the ESS product suite, various Oracle applications and Oracle's compliance solutions, this initiative should be beneficial for clients.
This particular alliance is focused on environmental compliance. However, while being a significant step, it does not offer a complete EH&S solution set — particularly related to the occupational health and safety functionality delivered by other providers such as Medgate. Customers looking for a total EH&S platform may need multiple platforms and vendors to fill out the whole portfolio of EH&S. But this is not necessarily a competitive disadvantage. Many other EH&S solution sets, including those based on SAP, require multiple products to deliver full functionality.
Bron: Gartner.com