Firstly I would like to thank Steve Miranda, the head of Oracle's Fusion applications development for granting us the permission to write this book. He also made the grave mistake of recruiting me onto his team and paying attention to me when I was bleating that this Enron issue was going to mean that audit was going to have to be automated. Steve really is a great leader and it has been a great learning experience to watch him guide the ship of impossible dreams that is Fusion, and quell the storms, not only of outrageous fortune, but the tempestuous spirits that are the management team at Oracle.
I need to thank my great friend and co-conspirator Adil, without whom the mountain would have been twice as high and the load twice as heavy.
There have been many people at Oracle who have given assistance: Georginna Manning and the Demo Solution Services team—their support for my constant requests for demo environments was invaluable; Swanarli Bag and the GRC team for making screenshots from the edge of possibility.
I would like to thank Bastin Gerald, Mumu Pande, Saye Arumugam, and the team that helped take Internal Controls Manager to market. Their minds are onto other great ventures now, but it was great to ride those rapids in the early days with them. We really did shape an industry.
I need to thank Mr. Kurt Robson, who brought me into Oracle and taught me the science and discipline of design. It is not possible to work at Oracle among so many shining intellects without having that brilliance reflect off the surface of your own mind, however dully.
I need to thank my friends and trainers Pat Regan and Mike Marshall, who through all this kept me fit and asked me to keep my hands up and my head moving.
There is no thanks that is enough for my beautiful wife Anita without whose support my life would be pretty unmanageable. My thanks as well to my son Ansel, who has to tolerate weekends spent in libraries and coffee shops watching me write and research.