Ellison: More Fusion apps coming soon

Within the first six months of next year, Oracle plans to trot out the first of its long-awaited Fusion applications.

And if Larry Ellison, Oracle chief executive, has his way, the three Fusion applications will make their debut in the earlier part of that period. As they say in the financial world, he's cautiously optimistic.

Oracle's "Sales Prospector" will be the first to debut, a type of software as a service (SaaS). That will be followed by "Sales References" and "Sales Tools."

"All new applications in 2008 will be Fusion applications. They are built on an industry standard-based middleware and a service-oriented-architecture (SOA)," said Ellison, during his keynote speech at Oracle OpenWorld on Wednesday. "That's the primary characteristic of a Fusion app."

The Fusion Sales Prospector application is designed to help companies make better sales forecasts, where Sales References' aim is to help sales representatives sell more products or services with the aid of data mining.

Oracle's Fusion Sales Tools are designed to aid developers.

And when it comes to Oracle's customers, Ellison said they have one thing that's top of mind.

"They're saying, 'My Fusion apps have to coexist with my other applications,'" Ellison said. "That's priority No. 1."