Oracle Loses Key Retail Bid

InformationWeek did a story on the lack of integration of Oracle's retail solution set and how that led to a lost bid to SAP. Despite all of Oracle's commotion in retail, I think marketing is one thing but customer choice speaks volumes.

Oracle Loses Would-Be Customer To SAP Due To Integration Concerns

• One of the biggest turnoffs to Oracle, says Sport Chalet CFO Howard Kaminsky, was -- ouch -- lack of integration between Oracle financial applications and the retail apps of Retek, which it acquired about 18 months ago.
• SAP's offering for the retail market, by comparison, "was ahead of its time in that a lot of pieces were integrated," Kaminsky says.
• Such impressions on would-be customers aren't good for Oracle, as the potential difficulty of integrating its myriad acquisitions is the biggest question hanging over its success in ERP.
• "We went out and looked at all the usual software companies that relate to retail," Kaminsky says. "At the time we didn't expect SAP to be in the running; we didn't know they were that interested in the middle market. They came back very aggressively and said they were very interested."