Ponder Pro Serve

PPS Defends Oracle and the Siebel Upgrade at Collaborate 07!

When we attended an upgrade presentation given by a well known "big 5" consultancy we were shocked that much of the information was so inaccurate or misleading. This presentation was unfair to Oracle and the Siebel upgrade so we had to do something about it. This presenter had the entire audience believing the Siebel upgrade was a horrible process which is simply not so.

The main problem was the presenter was on a very difficult 6.x Z/OS (IBM mainframe) upgrade to 7.8. He went on to generalize that all Siebel upgrades were like the one he was working on and this is what made his presentation so misleading.

Numerous other misleading tidbits of information were also given. For example the presenter showed diagrams of 6.x and 7.8 systems using bidirectional data synchronization. He indicated that this was pretty easy to do. We know for certain that this is very difficult to do and is very costly. The funny thing was this presenter went on to say that on his 6.x to 7.8 upgrade project they would be using a “big bang” approach. If it were so easy to do bidirectional data synchronization why would he be using a big bang approach???

It was as if this presenter had never performed a 7 -> 7 upgrade. The majority of the audience at C07 clearly were 7.x customers looking to upgrade to version 8. We even told the presenter about a highly successful 7.0 -> 7.7 upgrade Robert and Subodh performed for his company while still with Siebel.

The fact of the matter is this:

Sure Siebel 6.x upgrades are tough but with advanced technology like PPS Tools Helper © we can perform these upgrade much faster and cheaper than was possible in the past with purely manual, non automated means of doing these upgrades.
We have performed many and know of even more 7 -> 7 Siebel upgrades that were very reasonable projects. Often these customers were surprised by how well their upgrades went considering what they had heard about the Siebel upgrade process. Clearly today when we plan for 7.x -> 8.0 upgrades many of concerns we had to deal with on 6.x -> 7.x upgrades no longer apply. It is time for Siebel customers and Siebel analysts to get up to speed on how much better the upgrade process is. While the Siebel upgrade is a big project and should not be underestimated 7.x -> 8.0 upgrades are in general much better than the 6.x -> 7.x upgrades of the past.

When Robert presented his Siebel 8.0 upgrade presentation the next day he started off by correcting the misinformation given at the earlier presentation. In addition he answered several questions that were not answered in the earlier presentation.