On Tuesday, Oracle announced its Transportation Management, which will have out-of-the-box integration with E-Business Suite 11i-based workflows. The software will support, among other things, order entry, procurement, and supply chain event management processes. It also will enable the tracking and tracing of items, the ability to make freight payments and the performance of historical analysis.

In turn, the company intends to stop selling or developing its two existing logistics packages, Oracle Transportation Planning and Oracle Transportation Execution, said Mark Johnson, Oracle's senior director of product marketing. Pre-built connectors are not planned for Oracle's PeopleSoft or J.D. Edwards & Co. applications, he said. The integration with the E-Business Suite will be phased in during the next year.

The name change to the application reflects Oracle's desire to deliver a 'seamless' product that fits into the 11i suite, said Adrian Gonzalez, analyst at ARC Advisory Group Inc., a Dedham, Mass.-based consulting firm. 'Will users care that the name has changed? No,' Gonzalez said. However, users seeking a 'holistic' logistics application that handles warehouse management and can deliver supply chain visibility will be interested in how quickly the vendor can tie all the various components together.

Oracle Transportation Management is currently shipping and can be purchased either as part of the E-Business Suite or as a standalone product.