Cianbro selects Oracle business intelligence suite

Oracle has announced that Cianbro, a provider of construction and service solutions, has selected Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus to standardize reporting and deliver actionable insight across the company.

After evaluating a number of solutions, Cianbro concluded that Oracle BI suite EE Plus's open, scalable, and comprehensive analysis and reporting capabilities were best equipped to serve its growing business by enabling integration with its Oracle Database and other data sources as well as business critical applications and functions such as payroll, human resources and financial reporting.

Dale Thomas, director of information technology and corporate security officer at Cianbro, said: "As a construction and an employee-owned company, our people are our most important and valued asset. By replacing homegrown reports and standardizing on Oracle Business Intelligence, we will be able to improve how we track, analyze and report on our people assets - helping us to better forecast for and utilize our resources and better serve our projects and clients."

Source: www.cbronline.com

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Oracle Acquisition of BEA Closes

Oracle has finalized its US$8.5 billion deal to buy BEA Systems following the European Commission's approval, it announced Tuesday.

"The Commission concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it," a statement on the organization's Web site reads in part.

"The Commission examined the potential effects of the proposed merger on the overall middleware software sector and its various sub-divisions ... In each instance, the Commission found that the horizontal overlap between the parties' activities would not give rise to competition concerns, in particular since Oracle and BEA were not seen to compete head-to-head."

In addition, the combined company will face a number of viable competitors in the middleware market, such as IBM, Sun, Microsoft and SAP, meaning "customers would therefore find sufficient alternative suppliers," the Commission added.

Tuesday's news closed the book on a long and tumultuous bid process marked by shareholder angst, assorted counter-offers and public jousting by company officials.

Author: Chris Kanaracus @ IDG News Service

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Five reasons Oracle/PeopleSoft was more fun than Microhoo

As the Saturday deadline looms for Yahoo to give Microsoft an answer on the latter's takeover bid, it's time for those of us writing about this to admit something: This is getting boring.

I mean "boring" in that Village of the Damned or Groundhog Day way, in which we're doomed to write the same story over and over and over again. Tomorrow, Yahoo may or may not respond to Microsoft with a carefully worded letter. Sunday, Microsoft may or may not respond with a carefully worded letter. Monday, The Wall Street Journal, which we suspect has a bat phone to Yahoo corporate PR, likely will publish yet another article quoting "people close to Yahoo" with another plan to wiggle out of Microsoft's grip.

We will dutifully cover all of it, and we will be bored. You know what this fracas really needs? Larry Ellison.

Oracle's Ellison, of course, made a fine show of his hostile takeover of rival software maker PeopleSoft back in 2003. It was all vinegar from the start. Ellison mused about the thousands of PeopleSoft employees he'd have to lay off; the PeopleSoft customers who would be forced to migrate to Oracle software (the reality turned out to be much more accommodating); and at one point mused that if he had one bullet, PeopleSoft CEO Craig Conway's dog would be perfectly safe, but Conway could have some problems. (When Ellison made that crack in an analyst presentation, I was sitting behind an Oracle corporate PR person who made a sound something akin to "AIEEEEE!!!")

Conway responded by appearing on stage a few days later with his dog--both of them wearing bullet-proof vests. That's good stuff! So in the spirit of the real animosity that consumed that takeover, rather than the passive-aggressive testiness between Yahoo and Microsoft, here are five reasons the Oracle/PeopleSoft fight was so much more fun than this one:

The hostility was no act. Yahoo's Jerry Yang has made it clear he'd sooner kiss a Wookie than sell his company to Microsoft. But at PeopleSoft, there was genuine hatred for Oracle. You couldn't have two more different companies. PeopleSoft was viewed as the people-friendly company. Its core market was human resources software. Oracle was Oracle, with a well-earned reputation for cutthroat competition inside and outside the company. Its core market was databases and financial software. People...who needs people?

That's not to say the PeopleSoft people were pushovers. They were known to chant "Kill Oracle!" at corporate pep rallies, and were just as eager to brawl over big customers; their suits just weren't as fancy.

The Oedipal angle. At the time of the takeover fight, the CEOs of at least four major software companies had started their executive careers at Oracle, including PeopleSoft's Conway. Say what you want about Ellison, but he's good at spotting talent, and unfortunately turning that talent into rivals as they get older. That's what he had in Conway, a smart, aggressive executive who would, ummm, sooner kiss a Wookie than sell out to Ellison. I suppose you could make all sorts of Luke Skywalker/Darth Vader metaphors here, but I'll spare you the pain.

Ellison, the swashbuckler of software. Everyone loves a good show, and Ellison delivered. Besides the initial salt-of-the-earth musings and gunplay discussion, Ellison, the billionaire yachtsman, showed few executives can swagger like he can.

When he testified at an eventual antitrust trial that could have blocked the PeopleSoft takeover, Ellison arrived in celebrity style (with cameras swarming outside the federal courthouse in San Francisco where the trial was held) in a natty charcoal suit with patriotic red tie. On his way to the witness stand, he swiped a bottle of water off the Justice Department lawyer's desk, sat down, opened the bottle, and took a deep, satisfied swig. It was a moment of pure arrogance. Classic Ellison.

Dave Duffield, savior of kittens and puppies. Conway was the chief exec, but Duffield, PeopleSoft's founder, was still chairman of the board. Duffield's public persona was the antithesis of Ellison. He often signed his name with his initials, D.A.D., and that's how many longtime employees viewed him. Duffield had a reputation for lavishing his fortune on animal shelters, while Ellison had a reputation for lavishing his fortune on himself. They were the yin and yang of software.

Oracle fought the law and Oracle won. Perhaps it's unfair to say the Justice Department prosecutors who tried to block Oracle from buying PeopleSoft were bumbling, but from the outset, their case seemed shaky. The federal judge presiding over the case started grilling them during opening statements, and didn't let up for the duration of the trial. Now I'm not ever going to argue that Oracle was an underdog, but for the anti-establishment types in the press corps, it was awfully interesting to see a government argument unravel so quickly.

Of course, there's still a very good chance Microhoo could draw government scrutiny. But I have no faith in the folks from Redmond (who have a long, painful track record with this sort of thing) to flamboyantly thumb their noses at the feds the way Oracle did.

So here's my plea to Ellison: Please, get involved, become Yahoo's white knight. It's not too late. Time-Warner's AOL and News Corp. (and probably Google, too) are just playing footsy with Yahoo. There's an opening for you. This is a great opportunity to piss off Ballmer and Gates & Co. Sure, you've got lots of other acquisitions to deal with, but you'll figure this out.

Help us, Larry Ellison. You're our only hope.

Author: Jim Kerstetter @ www.news.com

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Researcher exposes new way to hack Oracle database

Security researcher David Litchfield has released technical details of a new type of attack that could give a hacker access to an Oracle database.

Called a lateral SQL injection, the attack could be used to gain database administrator privileges on an Oracle server in order to change or delete data or even install software, Litchfield said.

Litchfield first disclosed this type of attack at the Black Hat Washington conference last February, but on 24 April he published a paper with technical details.

In a SQL injection, attackers create specially crafted search terms that trick the database into running SQL commands. Previously, security experts thought that SQL injections would only work if the attacker was inputting character strings into the database, but Litchfield has shown that the attack can work using new types of data, known as date and number data types.

Litchfield's attack targets the Procedural Language/SQL programming language used by Oracle developers.

A noted database hacker, Litchfield is best known as the researcher who published details on the bug used in the 2003 SQL Slammer worm, which targeted Microsoft's SQL Server database.

Litchfield wasn't sure how widespread lateral SQL injection vulnerabilities are, but he thinks the attack could cause real damage in some scenarios.
"If you happen to be using Oracle and you write your own applications on it, then yes, you could be writing vulnerable code," he said. "The sky is not falling ... but it's certainly something that people should be made aware of."

Database programmers should review their code to be sure it is checking to make sure that all of the data it is processing is legitimate, and not injected SQL commands, he said.

Oracle did not return a call seeking comment.

Author: Robert McMillan @ www.computerworlduk.com

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Tucson Electric Power implements Oracle SOA suite

Oracle has announced that Tucson Electric Power Company has implemented its Service-Oriented Architecture suite, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, to integrate its various business applications and establish new services with reusable web services.

Using Oracle Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) suite, Tucson Electric Power Company expects to implement and integrate new applications 36% faster and reduce time spent on supporting and maintaining the system by 50%.

Oracle SOA suite helps eliminate customized application integration requirements, establishing a framework of reusable components that allow Tucson Electric Power Company to simplify integration between additional work management applications and other back office systems - eliminating the requirement for custom, 'hard wired' interfaces.

This integration allowed the organization to streamline work requests sent from Storms to Oracle Projects and to track project costs more efficiently. The Storms application enables the organization to assign field crews to restore electricity service and make repairs caused by storm damage.

Quentin Grady, senior vice president and general manager of utilities at Oracle, said: "Oracle SOA suite delivers value by empowering organizations to create new applications rapidly and establish a flexible application infrastructure that eliminates costly and time-intensive integration requirements."

Source: www.cbronline.com

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RC 44 Cagliari Cup: BMW ORACLE Racing competes in first regatta of season

BMW ORACLE Racing competes in the team’s first competition of the 2008 season starting tomorrow at the RC 44 Cagliari Cup in Italy. Skipper Russell Coutts and team owner Larry Ellison are sharing afterguard duties in their first regatta together.

“This is Larry’s first time sailing the RC 44s and he is really enjoying it,” said BMW ORACLE Racing skipper Russell Coutts. “On our first day of training yesterday, we saw 25 knots of fresh sea breeze off the Sardinia coast. We had a great time shaking down the boat and tuning up with some practice starts and drop set maneuvers. Larry is looking forward to helming this week in both the match racing against the pro skippers and in the fleet racing events against the other owner/drivers. It’s a competitive fleet here and promises to be great racing.”

The RC 44 circuit is part of the team’s overall 2008 sailing program. Other team members on board for this regatta include Dirk de Ridder, Ross Halcrow and Brad Webb.

Six other BMW ORACLE Racing crew members are competing here this week on two other entries. James Spithill has Michele Ivaldi and Joey Newton racing with him on board Igor Lah’s RC 44. Max Sirena, Noel Drennan and Daniel Fong are sailing with Ben Ainslie with owner Patrick de Barros. BMW ORACLE Racing sailing coordinator Julien di Biase joins his teammates on board the de Barros entry.

The regatta starts Wednesday 23 April with two days of match racing followed by three days of fleet racing, concluding on Sunday 27 April.

Author: Jane Eagleson @ www.bymnews.com

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Oracle addresses archiving

You know when an American West coast-headquartered IT vendor is serious about a product when it gets its press staff to send out releases at 5 am in the morning West Coast time. And that is what happened at the Redwood Shores offices of Oracle USA on Monday when it announced the release of Universal Online Archive 10g (UOA) and the associated Oracle Email Archive Service.

Despite (or potentially in part because of) the downturn in western economies, archiving, including email archiving, appears to be this year's 'must have' product for the enterprise. However, this is not a vendor-driven initiative, unlike a large number of significant IT purchasing decisions that have been made over recent years. This is a direct response to customer demand.

Compliance, risk management, and eDiscovery, all require robust archiving of digital content. According to Oracle one in four US companies being prosecuted have had corporate email subpoenaed as part of the case. Furthermore the fallout from the sub-prime debacle has prompted many financial institutions to invest in solutions to trawl their 'back catalogue' of communications and agreements to identify their potential exposure.

Oracle wants a bit of this archiving pie, and fortunately for the company it has four elements that enable it to address the demand by putting a good sized knife and fork into the pastry meat and gravy.

The first is building the Universal Online Archive platform on top of the Oracle Database, which can cope with both the scale and the variety of content that organisations will need to archive. The second is its HVIE (High-volume Import engine) which can ingest millions of objects per day. Third is the acquisition of high volume content management technology and specialist staff in the guise of Stellent. Lastly is a broad content archiving strategy, not just focusing on email.

The product is focused on holding all historical content, in whichever format, initially from email, but later to include SharePoint, file server, and even ERP content, within a single platform.

As part of the business case development for the product Oracle looked at its own content storage, identifying that 'active' content (with a short 30 day lifecycle) is a much smaller percentage of content stored than that which is 'historical' i.e. rarely accessed, but must be kept for five years or more.

Oracle identified also that archiving does not need the full Enterprise Content Management (ECM) stack, just a highly scalable infrastructure, which could both store, and more importantly retrieve, high-volume, often low-value content from any source.

Importantly Oracle has not made the mistake of thinking that archiving is the same as Records Management, and there is an adapter for Oracle Universal Records Management (EuroView Daily, 10 October 2007). This gives full classification of the content, and a policy-based process of disposition at the end of a record's defined retention period. Here the record is either deleted (with no chance of recovery), retained for a further set period, or in the case of many government records retained in perpetuity.

In Ovum's opinion this announcement is another demonstration of the bringing to fruition the combined capabilities of both the Oracle and former Stellent teams, melding understanding of content types with that of high-volume storage. Good move, very timely.

Author: Mike Davis @ www.ovum.com

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Oracle Advances Price Management Strategy With Deal

Deal Management furthers Oracle’s strategy of delivering a complete price optimization and management suite. Be aware that Oracle offers separate modules for Siebel and EBusiness Suite. On 14 April 2008, Oracle announced the availability of Deal Management, a software module that is designed to enforce pricing practices and provide tools to aid deal negotiation processes.

Deal Management represents an initial step by Oracle in executing its strategy to offer a complete pricing software suite. Announced in November 2007, Oracle’s strategy is to deliver by 2009 modules under the Price Management brand that address price analytics, price optimization and price execution functions for E-Business Suite and Siebel. This strategy marks a shift from Oracle’s traditional focus on price execution as an option bundled with order management and quoting applications. Deal Management complements existing price execution capabilities for managing price lists and communicating prices, with additional functionality for:

* Reviewing deal elements via price waterfall analyses
* Pricing reviews by line items
* Deal profitability analysis
* Price recommendations for structuring deals
* Approval workflow and policy enforcement

Oracle has stated that Deal Management was built on Fusion Middleware and supports Siebel CRM 8.0, E-Business Suite 11.i.10 and Release 12. It has not disclosed that separate products were released for Siebel and E-Business Suite as an interim measure to expedite market entry. Oracle is currently developing Price Management for two application suites that eventually will be consolidated into one offering:

* One for Siebel, with modules called Price Performance Analytics, Price Planning, Price Administration, Dynamic Pricer and Deal Management
* Another for E-Business Suite, with modules entitled Price Performance Analytics, Price Planning, Advanced Pricing and Deal Management


The Price Performance Analytics and Price Planning modules will be shared between suites, but the Deal Management modules differ:

* Siebel Deal Management is written in Siebel code and embeds software that Oracle acquired from Revenue Technologies for price waterfall analysis, determining profitability and pocket margin and providing discount guidelines.
* Deal Management for E-Business Suite was developed separately in Java and PL/SQL, but includes intellectual property from Revenue Technologies for enforcement and authorization workflows and analytics for scoring deals.

The presence of Revenue Technologies and Siebel code may mean more of a migration than an upgrade, should customers eventually migrate to Fusion.

Author: Michael Dunne @ www.gartner.com

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Oracle files new charges against SAP

Oracle has filed new charges against SAP alleging that its TomorrowNow subsidiary stole Oracle software with the knowledge of SAP executives, according to court papers filed yesterday.

Oracle claims its revised complaint will reveal "a pattern of unlawful conduct that is different from, and even more serious than the mass downloading," which was the focus of the original case.

Oracle filed its first complaint against SAP in 2007, alleging that TomorrowNow employees posed as Oracle customers to download patches and support documentation from Oracle's website.

TomorrowNow then used the materials to provide cheap services to Oracle customers, and made attempts to switch them onto SAP's platform, Oracle alleges.

Oracle now claims that TomorrowNow workers downloaded Oracle business applications, as well as just its support materials and that SAP executives may have been complicit - something SAP has vehemently denied.

"It appears that SAP AG and SAP America knew - at executive levels - of the likely illegality of TN's business model from the time of their acquisition of TN and, for business reasons, failed to change it," said Oracle.

SAP claimed that it did not have access to Oracle materials downloaded by TomorrowNow. SAP explained that it intentionally created a business structure that maintained a firewall between TomorrowNow and SAP and that it was satisfied that SAP AG or SAP America did not access Oracle intellectual property via TomorrowNow.

The parties' next case management conference will be held on April 24.

Author: John-Paul Kamath @ www.computerweekly.com

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Indian industrial sector relies on Oracle technology

Oracle announced that more and more midsize companies in India are relying on Oracle technology to enhance their business operations, particularly companies in the industrial manufacturing sector. KPIT Cummins (Pune), Secure Meters (Udaipur), Swaraj Automotives (Chandigarh), J K Cements (Lucknow), Apollo Tyres (Surat), Andhra Pradesh Power Electricity Distribution Company (Vizag), JBM Auto (Nasik), Kalyani Steels (Pune), Balasore Alloys (Bhubaneswar), Sheeshayee Paper Mills (Coimbatore), Nitin Spinners (Jaipur) are some of the companies who are enjoying the benefits of low cost IT solutions on Oracle Database, to help achieve their business goals and reap profits.

To address the business requirements of industrial manufacturing companies, Oracle has teamed with specialized independent software vendors and local channel partners to help them develop solutions on Oracle Database and Oracle Fusion Middleware platforms. Independent software vendors (ISV) namely 3i Infotech, Chain-Sys (India), Eastern Software Systems, Matrix Infosystems and Nippon Data Systems have developed low cost, Oracle-based software solutions that can be used for specific business tasks like financial accounting, materials management, sales and distribution, HR and payroll, production planning and control, plant maintenance, fixed asset schedule, customer care and order management, administration and security among others.

Oracle Partner Network (OPN) members market these solutions in close association with Oracle ISV partners. They have the domain knowledge to address the needs of midsize companies as well as the technical knowledge of Oracle's product offerings. They are instrumental in selling, implementing and supporting the customer's IT infrastructure locally.

"With automation of business processes, industrial manufacturing organizations have started to seriously consider IT investments to help propel their business," said Anup Varma, Regional Director, Technology Commercial Sales, Oracle India. "Several industrial manufacturing organizations across the metro cities and other high growth cities in India are using Oracle's technology and applications to run their critical business processes."

"With Oracle, our critical data is secure because we can limit access to unauthorized users," said Rakesh Mehra, MD, Rajit Paints, Ludhiana. "We can let the database manage itself and focus on issues that directly impact our business such as improving customer service."

"We chose Oracle because it is more cost effective and much more robust and flexible," said Arvind Bhosale, Dai-lchi Karkaria, Pune. "It also handles more complex applications than other similar products available in the market." "Oracle is the best database - affordable for any size of business, including large corporations and medium sized companies," said Ajit Kumar Jain, General Manager (Systems), HEG, Mandideep, Bhopal. "We have been able to achieve near zero-downtime at the highest levels of performance."

Oracle provides scalable, industry-specific, and best-in-class functionality for fast-growing companies with limited budgets. Oracle's proven, open technology and network of partners help ensure that its software is easy to buy, install, and maintain, but still give midsized companies the power, security, and functionality of enterprise-strength systems - at a fraction of the cost. Its business applications solutions give customers an unequalled level of choice in the market, and include the Oracle E-Business Suite, and Oracle's J.D. Edwards, PeopleSoft, and Siebel product lines.

Source: http://www.computerworld.com.sg

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Oracle Issues 41 Security Fixes in Latest CPU

Oracle plugs a critical security hole in Oracle Application Server in its latest round of patches.

Oracle released fixes for a total of 41 bugs in its April Critical Patch Update, including a serious vulnerability affecting Oracle Application Server.

The CPU, Oracle's second of the year, includes 17 fixes for Oracle Database products, 11 for the Oracle E-Business Suite, six for the Oracle Siebel Enterprise Suite, three for Oracle Application Server, three for the PeopleSoft-JD Edwards Suite and one for Oracle Enterprise Manager.

The most serious of the vulnerabilities affects Oracle Application Server, specifically Oracle Jinitiator, and has a CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) rating of 9.3. Jinitiator allows a Web-enabled Oracle Forms client application to run within a browser. According to the company's advisory, the vulnerability applies only to the client portion of Application Server.

"The impact of this vulnerability is limited to Jinitiator; there is no Oracle Application Server impact," company officials stated in the advisory. "Oracle Jinitiator Versions 1.3.1.15 and later are not affected."

All three of the vulnerabilities affecting Application Server can be exploited remotely without authentication. Seven of the 11 vulnerabilities affecting Oracle E-Business Suite can be exploited remotely without a user name or password.

January's CPU featured 26 security fixes for Oracle products. The next CPU is slated to be released July 15.

Author: Brian Prince @ www.eweek.com

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Oracle launches two archiving products

Oracle has announced two products aimed at securely archiving enterprise content and email. The Universal Online Archive application sits on top of Oracle's database, said Andy MacMillan, vice president of product marketing in Oracle's enterprise content management division. That means the content can use features like SecureFiles, a file encryption and compression system native to Oracle's 11g database release.

Oracle developed the core of the software organically, but it also employs some technology from its acquisition of Stellent, according to MacMillan.

Despite its name, the initial release of Universal Online Archive will first be available as an on-premises install, according to MacMillan. However, he added, "We are looking very aggressively at what it would take to make this an on-demand product."

The other new release, Oracle E-Mail Archive Service, provides a means for storing content from Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Notes and SMTP-based mail systems, Oracle said.

"The email archiving market is a growing market for a lot of compliance reasons," MacMillan noted. "This product really grew from a lot of market demand we got from our own customers."
The announcements garnered a nod of approval from one observer.

"I think what Oracle is trying to do with [Universal Online Archive] is develop an infrastructure application that will sit behind all of the other systems and allow retention and retention policies to occur and be managed centrally," wrote David Roe, a technical architect for Ironworks Consulting, on his blog.

"Where I think they are doing it right is by not trying to force companies into replacing their current applications," he added. "I don't think anyone would be interested in another Exchange or another SharePoint just to implement better compliance software."

Oracle did not name a firm date for the products' release, saying only that they are expected to be available in 2008. Universal Online Archive is expected to cost US$20 (310)per named user or $75,000 (£37,500) per CPU, and the E-Mail Archive Service will be priced at $50 per named user plus or $40,000 per CPU.

It made the announcements at the start of Collaborate 08, an Oracle user conference going on this week in Denver.

Author: Chris Kanaracus @ IDG News Service

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Capgemini Named A Leading Oracle Implementation Provider By Independent Research Firm

Capgemini, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, today announced that it has been named a leader in an independent report about Oracle Implementation Providers by Forrester Research, Inc.

Capgemini was among the select companies that Forrester invited to participate in its March 10, 2008, Forrester Wave™ report, “Oracle Implementation Providers, Q1 2008”, which is Forrester’s first evaluation of Oracle implementation providers. The report assessed 13 providers across 107 criteria. In this evaluation, Capgemini was cited as a “leader” among global Oracle Implementation Providers.

The Forrester report states that Capgemini is an Oracle implementation leader “with strong end-to-end implementation skills,”1 and describes Capgemini in its vendor summary as follows:

“Capgemini rounds out the Leaders group with strong overall capabilities and EMEA presence. Capgemini is strong across most phases of implementation and across a breadth of verticals. It is also unique in being the only provider in the evaluation with a client base and resource mix more heavily skewed towards Europe.”1

“We’re honored to be named a leader in Forrester’s Oracle Implementation Wave,” said Connie Cservenyak, vice president and global Oracle alliance leader, Capgemini. “As an Oracle Certified Advantage partner, we’re able to use our extensive knowledge of Oracle’s suite of applications to jumpstart our client’s implementation process and to help them foster innovation and growth for their businesses.”
The Forrester Wave™ is available to registered Forrester clients at (http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,42379,00. html).

(Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser’s address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

About Capgemini

Capgemini, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, enables its clients to transform and perform through technologies. Capgemini provides its clients with insights and capabilities that boost their freedom to achieve superior results through a unique way of working - the Collaborative Business Experience - and through a global delivery model called Rightshore®, which aims to offer the right resources in the right location at competitive cost. Present in 36 countries, Capgemini reported 2007 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion (approximately US$12 billion) and employs over 83,000 people worldwide.

More information is available at www.capgemini.com.

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Wehmeyer selects Oracle Retail application

Wehmeyer, the German fashion house, has selected Oracle Retail Price Optimization to help increase profitability through effective inventory management.

Wehmeyer informed that it will use the Oracle Retail application to introduce an advanced approach to managing in-season inventory, assortment and pricing strategies across its 40 stores in Germany.

The company hopes that the Oracle Retail Price Optimization will help provide Wehmeyer with greater visibility into customer demand, the impact of price points on inventory levels, gross margin performance and optimal in-season inventory management decisions.

Author: Pallavi B @ www.dmeurope.com

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I-flex solutions to change name to Oracle Financial Services

I-flex solutions, a provider of IT solutions to the financial services industry, has announced that its board of directors has approved a proposal to change the company's name to Oracle Financial Services, subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals.

The proposed new name reflects the company's close strategic and operational alignment with its parent, Oracle, which owns 81% of the company.

The new branding strategy demonstrates the synergies of scale, resources, expertise and efficiency across the two organizations. The current management team under NRK Raman will continue to run the operations of the company.

NRK Raman, CEO and managing director of i-flex solutions, said: "The new identity will enable us to better leverage the global reach, infrastructure and brand visibility of Oracle to accelerate our growth."

Source: datamonitor.com

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Oracle looks to India for financial services business

Oracle plans to make its Indian subsidiary a hub for its strategy for the financial services market. I-flex solutions, the Indian banking software subsidiary of Oracle, said Friday that in line with these plans, it will change its name to Oracle Financial Services.

The new branding reflects the importance that Oracle attaches to the financial services sector, a notice to the Bombay Stock Exchange quoted Charles Phillips, Oracle’s president, and a director of i-flex, as saying on Friday. Oracle Financial Services will be a focal point for Oracle's investment in innovation and leadership in financial services, Oracle said.

I-flex also announced Friday its plans to acquire the entire stake in Flexcel International, a joint venture it had set up with HDFC Bank in Mumbai to offer its banking software in an application service provider (ASP) model to small banks.

Based in Mumbai, i-flex is a vendor of banking and financial services software and services. It has 790 customers in over 130 countries. Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI),a financial institution in Central America, for example, has recently deployed i-flex’s Flexcube banking software.

Oracle currently owns 81 percent of the equity of i-flex. The change of name is subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals, i-flex said.

The local managers who set up i-flex will however continue to manage the company, a spokesman for i-flex said on Friday.

Oracle acquired from Citigroup's venture capital unit about 40 percent of the equity in i-flex in 2005, and raised its stake in the subsidiary in stages. The acquisition of a stake in i-flex was part of Oracle's move to expand beyond general purpose ERP (enterprise resource planning) applications and into more industry specific software, Oracle said at the time.

Oracle also has product development and services centers in India.

Author: John Ribeiro @ www.infoworld.com

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Oracle fuses CRM with OpenSocial, BlackBerry

Oracle hopes its customers will combine the company's latest On Demand CRM solution with social networking sites to close more deals. It also announced support for the BlackBerry and iPhone.

CRM On Demand now employs the Open Social API to keep its users up-to-date with information from their "friends" on social networking.

Oracle was a founding member of the Open Social alliance.

"People are choosing to document their lifestyle and relationships digitally," said Anthony Lye, Oracle's senior VP for On Demand, in Sydney today. "We spent a lot of time defining Open Social".

The Open Social feature can be configured to update the user's address book automatically with any new information posted on social networking sites, according to an Oracle spokesperson.

The content in release 15 of On Demand accesses "not just a bunch of static content" but information that "changes when people change", Lye said.

He said social networks broaden the reach of sales people by allowing them to see which major decision makers have relationships with people they already know.

"People are starting to do business more and more with people they like," Lye said.

Simon Banks, Oracle's general manager for CRM On Demand Asia Pacific, said that when he was trying to close a deal with a bank, all of the board members were on LinkedIn. He sent an invitation, which they accepted, and the relationship went from there.

Lye agreed there will be some fatigue on the part of decision makers if while using social networking sites they receive multiple invitations. "We're not saying that just by integrating everybody accepts." However, he said that getting to know someone through another trusted person is different from spam, and that there was value in just finding the person.

Apart from accessing information from social networks, users of the On Demand product can also access RSS feeds and widgets for news and blogs -- as they would with Web based portals such as iGoogle. Alternatively, they can have leads or top accounts put into a feed on their favourite portal.

Receiving up to date information from the feeds can help salespeople close sales, said Lye.

"CRM in general is a flat, one dimensional thing. What we wanted to do is try and give CRM a pulse," he said, adding that Oracle has tried to "tie the application into the very fabric of the Internet".

The new system also incorporates "Sticky Notes" and a messaging centre to allow the sales force to collaborate on deals.

On Demand Release 15 is very popular with sales people, according to Lye, who said that users were spending 38 to 65 percent of their work time in it, as opposed eight to 10 percent with previous applications.

Rival Sage is also taking its CRM package into the social realm.

Going mobile with BlackBerry, iPhone
Oracle also launched a "Mobile Sales Assistant" for CRM today, which works on the BlackBerry and will soon be available on Apple's iPhone.

"The idea was to build a natural extension of On Demand," Lye said.

If a salesperson finds their meeting is cancelled, the system can mash their sales lead data with a map to see if there are any alternative prospects that need a visit close to their current geographic location -- so they don't waste their journey

At the moment, Mobile Sales Assistant is only available on the BlackBerry. "We saw on our analytics an opportunity for the higher end sales professional," Lye said. "When we asked those people what devices they used, BlackBerry was the most dominant by far," he said, but Apple's iPhone was in second place.

There are plans to have a version available for the Apple iPhone, said Lye, but he didn't yet have a release date. Even though [the iPhone] is not yet available in Australia, many people already sport one, Banks said.

"I have one. It's the most beautiful thing we've ever seen," Lye added.

Author: Suzanne Tindal @ ZDNet.com.au

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Sun's MySQL Will Continue Oracle Relationship

Despite a new owner and the potential for more competition in the future, MySQL and Oracle will continue to work together.

When MySQL AB was bought by Sun Microsystems (NSDQ: JAVA), some knowledgeable observers said the first thing Sun would do is make MySQL free of its dependence on Oracle (NSDQ: ORCL).

MySQL incorporated the InnoDB transaction storage system as part of its database system, then Oracle acquired its Finnish parent company, Innobase Oy, in October 2005. "Look for Sun to do more and more to make MySQL free of any third parties," said Raven Zachary, open source analyst with the 451 Group, in an interview at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco.

But Zack Urlocker, the executive VP of products, who supervises both engineering and marketing at MySQL, says such independence is still viewed as unnecessary inside Sun. Urlocker appeared on a panel on the state of the open source database market. Seated nearby was Ken Jacobs, VP of product strategy at Oracle.

MySQL's strength has been in its ability to serve Web pages, and many Web applications are built with MySQL as the database of choice in the background. Oracle aspires to be the database of future applications as well, including Web applications, and it's conceivable the two eventually will come into more direct competition.

But Urlocker says that doesn't mean MySQL can't keep using InnoDB. "We've always had a very good relationship with Oracle," he said after the panel concluded.

"It's absolutely a fact. We've always had a very good relationship," affirmed Jacobs, one of the original employees of Oracle, who helped establish Oracle with the federal government from its new Washington office in 1981.

MySQL isn't ready to announce anything yet, but the way Urlocker and Jacobs exchanged meaningful glances, it was as if to say they're ready to sign a multiyear continuation of their agreement.

Meanwhile, another third-party piece of software on which MySQL used to depend, the SolidDB for MySQL that was under the sponsorship of IBM (NYSE: IBM), has been pushed off to SourceForge. Dhiren Patel, IBM's community relations manager for the overall SolidDB project, announced that IBM had acquired SolidDB in December for its in-memory database, technology that will help it compete with Oracle TimesTen.

"This in-memory technology, and not Solid's open source offering, was the key driver behind IBM's acquisition. As a result, I regret to inform you that, effectively immediately, we will not be continuing further development on SolidDB for MySQL," he wrote March 3, six days after Sun completed the MySQL deal.

The open source community around SolidDB for MySQL will be free to continue work on the project, and the developer forums and bug tracking have been migrated to SourceForge as well, Patel noted.

Urlocker said both Jacobs and Charles Phillips, Oracle's president, have assured him of continued, unfettered access to InnoDB. MySQL, initially developed as a read-only database, gets its key transaction handling characteristics from InnoDB and SolidDB for MySQL.

Author: Charles Babcock @ www.informationweek.com

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