SunGard challenges Oracle in public sector

Oracle is facing tough competition from SunGard Data Systems Inc. in its drive to gain a bigger share of the lucrative public sector software market.

Just ask Judy Owen, the systems manager for the City of St. Petersburg, Fla. Owen deals with both companies on a regular basis, and in her opinion, Oracle has too much going on right now to effectively address the public sector's needs.

"Honestly, I think that Oracle should stay out of [the public sector] for right now because I think they're having a terribly hard time as an organization with direction and with support and with consistency across their product lines," she said. "They're brewing at a tremendous rate and I don't think they're managing it well, so I think that they should slow down."

Both Oracle and SunGard expanded their presence in the public sector through acquisition. Last November, Oracle purchased SPL WorldGroup Inc., a maker of revenue and operations management software for the utilities industry. SunGard, a public sector stalwart in its own right, purchased local government software maker HTE Inc. in early 2003. Both companies also offer a wide range of financials and human resources applications.

The differences between the have to do with size and scope, said Ray Wang, an analyst with Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research Inc. SunGard, which is much smaller than Oracle, is more specialized and offers systems that drill down to fill the highly specific needs of government agencies and utilities, he explained.

Oracle, which boasts a large number of Oracle Database customers in the public sector, takes a broader approach in terms of functionality, Wang said, and one of its primary goals is to up-sell those public sector Database users on PeopleSoft and E-Business Suite applications.

"The public sector is a space that Oracle really wants to get their feet into," Wang said. "The SunGard products are a lot more specialized, though. They have the finance products and they've got the human resources stuff. But SunGard also has things like student billing, registration and accounting. And they've got other things, especially for local governments."

Wang said that another player to watch in the public sector applications market is Hansen Information Technologies, which was recently acquired by Infor.

An Oracle-SunGard user speaks out

The City of St. Petersburg -- a longtime user of HTE's land parcel management systems -- became a SunGard customer by default after the acquisition. But according to Owen, the transition has been fairly seamless.

"I don't think that [HTE was] purchased as an independent subsidiary, but that's how they seem to be operating," she said. "We're dealing with the same people and there hasn't been a lot of pain for us in SunGard having bought them."

All city departments that deal with land use SunGard-HTE systems, including the building and permits, occupational tax and licensing, utilities and codes enforcement departments, she said.

SunGard-HTE's utilities suite makes up the core of the city's utility billing system, and it allows citizens to do things like pay bills and apply for inspections and permits online, Owen said.

The SunGard-HTE systems are integrated with the Oracle E-Business Suite Financials applications that cover general ledger accounting and enterprise resource planning. The city, which also uses Oracle E-Business Suite Human Resources applications, went live with Oracle Financials about two years ago. Some of the other financials modules that the city uses cover payroll, purchasing, iProcurement, accounts receivable and accounts payable.

"When we went through the [Oracle ERP implementation] there were lots of challenges with the interfaces," Owen said. "I think there are always interface challenges. But it's working well now."

Owen said her group considered the possibility of standardizing on either Oracle or SunGard, but decided that it wouldn't work out.

"Oracle couldn't do the parcel-based information -- the land-based systems," Owen said. "Oracle just couldn't do it."

Oracle and SunGard square off on support

With few exceptions, SunGard has been good on the technical support side of things, but Owen can't currently say the same for Oracle.

"[Oracle] support is problematic at best," she said. "A lot of times the poor guys on the other end of the support lines don't know what the sales guys are selling."

Author: Mark Brunelli @ SearchOracle.com