It may not be Fusion, but for the moment it'll do.

Oracle is shipping E-Business Suite Release 12, a major upgrade of its ERP application suite, as well as upgrades of its acquired PeopleSoft, Siebel, and JD Edwards applications. Fusion, its brand-new suite that promises the best features of these apps in a product line based on service-oriented architecture, isn't due until sometime next year. But Oracle executives last week said these releases offer improved integration among the disparate product lines and with third-party software, along with hundreds of enhancements to each suite.

Oracle president Charles Phillips said the new releases fulfill the promise of Oracle's Applications Unlimited program--the vendor's pledge to update and support its applications, including those it acquired, even after Fusion ships. "When we made all these acquisitions, understandably there were some concerns," Phillips said.

Oracle has built closer ties among its application suites in part by linking all the apps to Oracle Fusion Middleware, by providing a common management framework, and by sharing capabilities such as business intelligence, business process analysis, and identity and access management. Customers, for example, can use a single set of business intelligence dashboards to examine data from Oracle financial applications, Siebel CRM apps, and JD Edwards manufacturing software.

John Wookey, the senior VP leading Fusion development, says it's on schedule for 2008, and Oracle will release details about the software in the next few months.