Ford kills Oracle purchasing in favor of mainframe

Sometimes in-house systems refuse to die. Sometimes, even when they seem to be dead they come back to life.

Computerworld is reporting that Ford Motor Company is abandoning a four year effort to implement Oracle Applications for purchasing and is reverting back to the in-house developed mainframe purchasing system that Oracle was intended to replace.

Ford has invested unspecified millions of dollars in the system, which was dubbed Everest and built around Oracle's databases and business applications. But Ford spokesman Paul Wood last week confirmed that the automaker has decided to shut down Everest and return the purchasing processes that were being run on the system to a set of custom-written mainframe applications. "We completed an evaluation of all the production and nonproduction procurement systems and made the decision to transition back to the proven, current system," Wood said.

Oracle declined to comment on Ford's move, citing a non-disclosure agreement.