Oracle retains lead in database market

IBM and Microsoft still trailing, says IDC. The worldwide relational database management systems market saw a 12.6 percent growth spike in 2007 to $18.8bn compared to $16.7bn in 2006, according to IDC.

While new features and innovations helped drive up revenue, some of the market's overall growth is also attributable to fluctuations in currency exchange rates, noted the report's author, analyst Carl Olofson. The weak US dollar has help drive up software vendors' reported revenues outside the country.

Oracle once again took the top spot, capturing 44.3 percent of the market with revenue growth of 13.3 percent. IBM came in second with a 21 percent share, also logging a 13.3 percent revenue growth rate. It was followed by Microsoft, with 18.5 percent of the market and a 14 percent jump in revenue.

Sybase and Teradata rounded out the top five, garnering market shares of 3.5 percent and 3.3 percent, respectively.

Oracle's continued strength came from sales of database options, such as its Real Application Clusters offering, Olofson said. "Oracle Database 11g has experienced unusually high early adoption rates for a major release," he added.

The top five vendors take up more than 90 percent of the market, but "there is plenty of dynamism and growth potential" in the other 10 percent, Olofson wrote.

For example, the open-source database maker Ingres took just 0.1 percent of the market in 2007, but that represented a 206.6 percent growth rate, according to the report.

Author: Chris Kanaracus @ www.pcadvisor.co.uk

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Oracle shares down as outlook gives pause

Fourth-quarter results top expectations, but forecast disappoints. Shares of Oracle Corp. slipped in early trading Friday after the software giant reported a 27% increase in fourth-fiscal-quarter profit but issued a forecast that was at the low end of expectations.

Oracle's recent results beat Wall Street's estimates despite worries that a sluggish U.S. economy could crimp sales. The company said net income for the period ended May 30 rose to $2.04 billion, or 39 cents a share, from $1.6 billion, or 31 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter.

Excluding special items, Oracle said net income for the quarter would have been 47 cents a share. Analysts were expecting earnings of 45 cents a share for the period, according to estimates from FactSet Research.

Revenue rose 24% to $7.24 billion. Wall Street had been expecting revenue of $6.85 billion. Oracle had previously projected revenue growth of 14% to 18%.

Shares of Oracle had run up nearly 20% in the past four months before the report. The stock slipped about 3% in early trading Thursday, moving down 65 cents to $21.90.
In a conference call late Wednesday, Oracle Chief Financial Officer Safra Catz said the company's strong sales should carry into its current quarter. But the company projected that earnings would come in between 24 and 27 cents a share for the period. Analysts were looking for 27 cents a share for the quarter.

"These numbers imply full-year license growth of 9%, which we believe is overly conservative even under adverse macroeconomic conditions given Oracle's ongoing market share gains in apps and middleware," Peter Goldmacher of Cowen & Co. wrote in a note to clients Thursday.

Tom Ernst of Deutsche Bank was less optimistic, writing that the company's strong fourth quarter was likely the result of heavy buying ahead of a planned price increase, which may have pulled sales out of the current period.
"While these tactical moves are consistent with Oracle's strategy to gain data center share in large enterprises, both bring business forward, are more likely to lead to shelfware and customer challenges, and potentially sacrifice longer-term growth," he wrote.

BEA's contribution

Oracle's most recent large acquisition was of so-called middleware provider BEA Systems Inc. in an $8.5 billion deal that closed in April. Middleware is used to connect disparate networks and programs.

While Catz said BEA delivered strong performance in the fourth quarter, she tempered expectations for the first quarter, saying BEA likely won't contribute more than $50 million to $60 million in new software-license revenue in the current period.
Oracle has expanded well beyond its roots as a database software provider by building up its middleware business and an applications software business to rival that of German goliath SAP AG.

Overall sales of new software licenses in the fourth quarter rose 27% over the year-ago quarter, Oracle said. The company had issued guidance for new license growth to be between 10% and 20% in the quarter. "We don't think our strategy is in any way running out of gas," Catz said. In a nine-inning baseball game, "I don't think we're even in the second inning at this point," she said. But while Oracle's fourth quarter is typically its strongest, its first quarter usually doesn't fare as well.

Catz said the company expects total revenue to grow between 18% and 20% in the first quarter from the total in the period a year earlier of $4.53 billion, while new software-license revenue should grow between 10% and 20%.

Author: John Letzing @ www.marketwatch.com

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Oracle Drops After Forecast Signals Slowing Growth

Oracle Corp., the world's second- largest software maker, dropped as much as 6.7 percent in European trading after a forecast for the current quarter signaled that growth may slow.

Excluding some costs, profit will be 26 cents to 27 cents a share, the Redwood City, California-based company said yesterday. Analysts had estimated 27 cents, according to a Bloomberg survey. Sales will rise between 18 percent and 20 percent, which would be the slowest growth since 2006.

Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison, 63, enticed customers last quarter with products obtained in a $33.5 billion acquisition spree. International sales and a rebound in U.S. orders helped the company withstand a slowing economy. Oracle's forecast failed to assure investors that last quarter's surge will continue in the current period.

``What's the catalyst to own the shares for a while? There probably isn't one,'' Sarah Friar, a Goldman, Sachs & Co. analyst in San Francisco, said in an interview. ``The company is taking a more conservative stance, and I think it's the right thing to do right now.''

Oracle dropped as much as $1.51 to the equivalent of $21.04 in German trading from the close of $22.55 on the Nasdaq Stock Market yesterday. They traded at $21.48 as of 12:48 p.m. in Frankfurt. The U.S. shares are little changed this year.

Net income climbed 27 percent to $2.04 billion, or 39 cents a share, in the fourth quarter, Oracle said yesterday. Sales increased to $7.24 billion in the period, which ended May 31.

Topping IBM

For fiscal 2008, Oracle reported $22.6 billion in revenue, vaulting it past International Business Machines Corp. in total software sales for the first time. Microsoft Corp. ranks No. 1.

Excluding acquisition costs and some other expenses, profit rose to 47 cents a share last quarter, topping the average analyst estimate of 44 cents. Including acquired companies, sales advanced to $7.28 billion in the period. That compares with a $6.88 billion average estimate.

Oracle's growth forecast indicates first-quarter sales of $5.42 billion to $5.51 billion.

``We aren't seeing a marked slowdown, but it's extremely early in the quarter,'' President Safra Catz told analysts yesterday on a conference call. ``We won't see significant issues until much, much later if they are there.''

Oracle dominates the market for database programs. It also sells business-management applications for tracking sales, managing billing systems and handling accounting tasks, and provides so-called middleware, which helps different types of programs share information.

Americas Rebound

Sales in the Americas region, dominated by the U.S., climbed 18 percent last quarter. While those sales grew more slowly than overall revenue, they bounced back from a decline in the earlier quarter.

``To see high-teens growth out of the U.S. is a nice rebound from the previous quarter,'' Andy Miedler, an analyst with Edward Jones & Co., said in an interview from St. Louis. ``Longer term, we expect broad-based strength out of all geographies for Oracle.''

Author: Rochelle Garner @ www.bloomberg.com

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HP, Oracle Announce Blade-based DW Appliance Killer

The HP/Oracle appliance is optimized for what officials call the sweet spot of the DW appliance market -- the 1-4 TB range.

This week, Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) and Oracle Corp. unveiled a pre-installed, pre-configured, and pre-optimized data warehouse-in-a-box. Think of it as a kind of appliance -- a data warehouse appliance -- that, once plugged-in, provides a turnkey data warehousing environment.

It's not a new idea, but neither, for that matter, is Oracle's Optimized Warehouse (OOW) initiative. Oracle, you'll remember, officially took the DW appliance plunge in September of last year, announcing a range of pre-built systems that bundled its vaunted 11g database with hardware and storage from Dell Computer Corp. and EMC Corp., respectively.

At the time, the industry rumor mill had it that Oracle would soon notch agreements with other hardware OEMs -- including, of course, HP.

Oracle closed that loop on Tuesday, teaming up with HP to launch the HP BladeSystem for Oracle Optimized Warehouse, a bundle that consists of HP hardware (namely, HP's BladeSystem servers and storage) and the ubiquitous Oracle Database. Optimized for what officials call the DW appliance sweet spot -- the 1-4 TB range -- HP's OOW-ready BladeSystem is slated to ship in July. It brings to mind a time when an appliance was an appliance: a big fast database, big fast hardware, and lots of big fast storage all rolled into one. That isn't necessarily the case anymore (see (http://esj.com/business_intelligence/article.aspx?EditorialsID=8960).

The BladeSystem Edge

In a segment where many appliance pure-plays market white-box offerings (or relabeled commodity racks from big-name OEMs), HP credibly claims to have an ace up its sleeve: its best-of-breed BladeSystem architecture boasts integrated power and cooling facilities and bundles a proprietary management tool to help optimize performance, efficiency, and cooling. Among its DW appliance competitors, only IBM Corp. -- which markets a series of Balanced Warehouse appliances based on its own System x and System p hardware -- can credibly claim to rival HP's demonstrable expertise in blades.

"If you think about blades, they are self-contained inside of one of our own physical enclosures. We can put management parameters around the power and cooling inside that box. We can spin down fans [and] we can offload power when it's not being used. We have sensors all throughout this C-7000 [HP's BladeSystem enclosure] that do thermal management on the fly, so we can consistently deliver to the customer the most efficient operation possible," says Rich Palmer, director of technology strategy and planning with HP.

IBM's blade-based appliances don't run Oracle, notes industry veteran Rich Ghiossi, director of BI portfolio marketing with HP. That's another big differentiator, he claims, arguing that a lot of customers simply want Oracle -- and nothing but Oracle -- on an appliance. "Customers have been looking for data warehouse solutions in the context of an appliance-like solution, and the combination [of Oracle and HP] is something we've been mutually asked for a long time," he says. Ghiossi notes that prior to this first-ever branded OOW offering, HP and Oracle collaborated to develop several data-warehouse-in-a-box reference configurations, largely in response to customer demand.

"Oracle and HP have worked together on a whole series of projects as strategic partners in the data warehousing space using reference configurations," he says. "We have about 50 different reference configurations for Oracle's Optimized Warehouse program. This one focused on the 1-4 TB [segment that] is going to provide a new level of capability. From the user's perspective, the ability to have this system with Oracle on it, with HP, preconfigured, ready to start loading data within hours after [it's plugged in] -- that's huge."

Oracle's OOW Coup

Since Oracle kicked off its OOW program last year, adoption has been strong and consistent, claims Willie Hardie, vice-president of database marketing with Oracle. "This has been an area of high demand for a long time now, but certainly over the past few years, we're certainly seeing a lot of uptake. That's why we created this [Oracle Optimized Warehouse] program," he comments.

Prior to its OOW launch, Hardie says, Oracle was a de facto appliance player, working with hardware partners such as Dell, HP, Sun, and others to develop DW reference configurations. The OOW program -- and Oracle's new accord with HP -- simply formalizes this collaboration, Hardie explains. "With this announcement, we've come up with specific configurations that our customers can buy directly from [a large reseller and integrator such as] Avnet, for example. What we're offering is a complete system; all the customer has to do is load the data and run their BI tools," he comments.

Established RDBMS players such as Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft Corp. have come under attack from several appliance upstarts, which like to claim that relational databases simply aren't cut out for analytic workloads. Hardie dismisses this claim, citing not just Oracle 11g's performance track record but Oracle's formidable expertise with respect to HP hardware, too.

"Oracle and HP have a lot of joint customers that go back a couple of years. We have a lot of expedience with working with HP hardware, servers, and storage. These customers have built up their own internal skills and have learned how best to configure data warehouses to meet their requirements. We're taking that expertise and using it [i.e., instantiating it] here," he argues.

HP's Palmer, on he other hand, stresses his company's experience when it comes to tuning Oracle 11g for data warehousing applications. "This is a standard Oracle [11g] database, yes, but [with regard to the] tuning, the configuration, we've finely-tuned it so that the customer when they receive it for a 1-4 TB configuration … it will be optimized for those kinds of workloads," Palmer indicates. "For those customers who have Oracle expertise, they can now take that expertise and use it in this appliance and be able to take advantage of all of these synergies between the hardware and the database."

It's a value proposition that should appeal to both the line of business and IT, Hardie suggests. "Designing data warehouse systems can be very difficult. For IT [i.e., database architects], it's difficult to get the balance of storage and processing capabilities right to [accelerate] these complex summary aggregation-type queries.

"For the business, it's difficult to anticipate the kinds of queries you'll need," he continues, "so we've taken it one stage further: we're taking even more of the risk out of this for you. We're saying, here's a complete package that's going to deliver on your business intelligence data warehousing requirements. It's pre-configured [and] it's pre-optimized for what you need."

HP's Other Appliance

The HP-Oracle Optimized Warehouse doesn't ship with any built-in BI or analytic capabilities. It's a warehouse offering -- built, of course, on the Cadillac of databases -- pure and simple.

In this respect, it bears an uncanny resemblance to another technology offering developed and marketed by HP: NeoView, a quasi-appliance -- it's an all-in-one data warehouse, server, storage, and fault-tolerant system proposition -- that HP kicked off in late 2006 and officially launched a year ago last month (see http://www.tdwi.org/News/display.aspx?ID=8430).

Unlike the new BladeSystem for Oracle Optimized Warehouse, HP's NeoView systems don't run Oracle; instead, they're outfitted with the NonStop database software which HP inherited from Compaq Computer Corp. (which itself inherited NonStop from the former Tandem Computer, 11 years ago).

Doesn't HP's new collaboration with Oracle poach on its NonStop turf? Ghiossi doesn't think so.

"We've had a long-term relationship with Oracle and have done a lot in the data warehousing space with Oracle. With regard to Neoview, we focus that in the enterprise space and really for operational business intelligence," he comments. "The version we're talking about today is really focused on data warehouses and data marts in the 1-4 TB range. We see them as really being complementary."

HP isn't alone. In addition to its DB2-based Balanced Configuration Warehouses, IBM markets an analytic appliance offering in tandem with Sybase Inc. and MicroStrategy. Moreover, there's nothing preventing Oracle and IBM from teaming up to launch a BladeCenter-based (IBM's blade system brand) OOW configuration. Rumors circulated late last year which had Oracle and IBM teaming up to do just that.

Moreover, industry watchers point out, Oracle's OOW initiative is designed to be flexible or hardware-neutral. "The Oracle initiative … is quite compelling. It's turning any hardware OEM into an appliance vendor using pre-installed, full-fledged versions of Oracle -- and, most importantly, Oracle certifies the configuration and performance so users know exactly what they're getting and how it should perform," said TDWI Research director Wayne Eckerson, at the time.

Author: Stephen Swoyer @ www.esj.com

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Oracle buys Frisco-based Skywire Software

California-based software behemoth Oracle said Monday that it has purchased Frisco's Skywire Software LLC, a provider of document management software primarily for the insurance industry.

Skywire was purchased for an undisclosed sum, according to information found on its Web site. The acquisition, which is expected to close during the second half of 2008, does not include Skywire's iWave IT automation software or its business process outsourcing unit.

Founded in 2000, Skywire has since expanded and purchased 10 other businesses. It employs 630 people, 200 of which are in the Dallas area. Although Skywire's current managers and workers are expected to join Oracle's staff, the companies have not yet disclosed whether those employees will remain at their current locations or move to existing Oracle offices, which include a Dallas office.

With the purchase of Skywire Software, Oracle's offerings will include customer communication management and document automation capabilities for multiple industries including financial services, legal and utilities.

"Insurers look to software to speed policy implementation, accelerate new business acquisition, reduce costs and manage regulatory risk," said Skywire Software President and CEO Patrick Brandt. "The combination of Skywire Software's best-in-class insurance and document automation software applications with Oracle's solutions will drive innovation and leadership to ensure our customers' continued success."

Source: www.oracle.com, www.skywiresoftware.com

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Oracle Hikes Prices to Fend off Flagging Dollar

Who has the audacity to raise prices in a soft market? Oracle does.

The business-software giant recently tacked 15% to 20% onto its fiscal 2009 prices. It's a bold move that gives the company more wiggle room in competitive sales negotiations. But it also addresses a fatal flaw in Oracle's worldwide pricing model.

This month, Oracle raised prices across the board, according to Jane Disbrow, research vice president at Gartner. The company had not raised per-server license prices in over six years, she said.

Increases of that magnitude "track with the industry," which had continued to nudge prices upward, says Stuart Williams, senior analyst at Technology Business Research.

Oracle's move follows a policy change at business-application competitor SAP within the past two months that effectively raised maintenance fees to match Oracle's.

Now, Oracle's new price hikes open the door for SAP to follow suit, Disbrow says.

Although it has so far not raised prices broadly, SAP has restructured some products in ways that push prices higher, Gartner analyst Daniel Sholler says.

Oracle is the leader in database software, but also has a broad portfolio of business applications and so-called middleware. SAP is the leader in business applications, but Microsoft is also strong in applications and database software. IBM is the middleware leader, also selling database and collaboration software. Big Blue said it has not raised across-the-board prices in the past year.

Oracle shares were off 2.7% to $22.08 in recent trading amid the market's broad selloff.

The effect of Oracle's increase, at least initially, will be to grow license revenue at a time when IT budgets are under pressure. IDC estimates worldwide corporate technology spending will slow to 4% growth for 2008, from a rate of 6% last year. But a Gartner survey of U.S. IT chiefs found that 25% reduced their budgets in the first quarter, while only 10% spent more.

However, Oracle's international revenue will begin to climb almost immediately, Disbrow says. The list increases are a reaction to pricing outside the U.S., which has fallen as the dollar has weakened, she says.

Unlike SAP, which prices software on a regional basis, Oracle sets worldwide prices. As a result, Oracle software has gotten cheaper abroad. Yet international customers who bought the software years ago at higher prices pay maintenance at a fixed percentage based on the original price. Those customers are paying more for annual support than customers who bought Oracle software recently.

The price increase addresses that disparity, Disbrow says. While both SAP and Oracle offer deep discounts of 50% to 60% off list prices, Disbrow expects Oracle to discount less outside the U.S., beginning immediately.

But don't look for a big, first-quarter jump in Oracle license revenue. Analysts say Oracle will likely phase in the new prices, with greater discounts being given initially and dropping in fiscal 2010.

Actual deal pricing will creep up slowly -- on a curve, Williams says.

Sholler says software prices and maintenance charges across vendors will tick up a couple of points every quarter over the next year. But all developers will keep increases just below the tripwire for switching to another vendor, he adds.

Landing new clients willing to pay hefty license fees is only part of the story. "License pricing gets you to the altar, and gets you married," Williams says. "Maintenance is the long-term relationship."

Oracle has built a revenue-generating machine by buying three dozen software companies in recent years whose clients pay regular maintenance fees entitling them to software upgrades. At BEA Systems, which Oracle bought in 2008, license fees made up just 36% of last year's revenue. Maintenance payments contributed $774 million.

During the first three quarters of the fiscal year just ended, Oracle's maintenance and upgrade revenue rose 24% to $7.5 billion.

Williams says he does not expect a shift in Oracle's maintenance pricing this year.

SAP recently changed its maintenance policy to match Oracle's by getting rid of a cheaper support option. SAP now requires customers to pay the 22% rate, in line with Oracle's, Disbrow says. It includes additional services, but SAP customers "are struggling with justifying those benefits," she said.

Avian Securities analyst Jeff Gaggin said in a note Wednesday he believes SAP is "struggling to generate business due to macro factors and competition from Oracle."

While SAP is well-positioned, "the macro environment is putting considerable pressure on deal sizes and close rates for applications, which is SAP's bread and butter," Gaggin wrote.

Author: Ivy Lessner @ www.thestreet.com

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Oracle looks to rebound in typically strong quarter

Oracle Corp. is expected to post solid profit and sales gains when it reports results after the market's close Wednesday for its fiscal fourth-quarter, typically its strongest period of the year.

The software giant is looking to rebound after delivering largely disappointing results in its previous, third quarter. See related story.
Analysts on average estimate business software maker Oracle (ORCL 22.70, +0.26, +1.2%) will report earnings excluding special items of 45 cents a share for the period ended in May, and $6.85 billion in revenue, according to FactSet Research.
That compares to earnings excluding special items of 37 cents a share, and $5.83 billion in revenue in the same period a year earlier.

While concerns have been raised about Oracle's performance amid the U.S. economic slowdown, the company is expected to be bolstered by overseas sales and an acquisition spree that has it well positioned in its various businesses.
Shares of Oracle have risen nearly 15% in the past three months, and closed Thursday at $22.70.

Oracle closed its $8.5 billion acquisition of middleware provider BEA Systems Inc. in April, and Jefferies & Co. analyst Ross MacMillan wrote in a note to clients Wednesday that he expects that to contribute earnings of a penny a share in Oracle's fiscal 2009, and 3 cents a share in 2011.

MacMillan wrote that Oracle is now able to make deep cost cuts at BEA, which should increase BEA's operating margin to 43% from 21% by the end of fiscal 2009.
For its recently ended quarter, MacMillan predicted a "rebound" in the Oracle's applications business, and "modest U.S. weakness."

"Europe and [Asia] remain strong and should continue to bolster the weaker Americas," MacMillan wrote.
Citigroup analyst Brent Thill wrote in a note to clients Wednesday that Oracle's recent price increases are a positive sign. On June 16, the company issued new prices for products that reflected a significant jump.

"We view this hike as positive for [Oracle's] overall business," Thill wrote, because they reflect the company's dominant or second place position in its various markets.

"We have not witnessed a price lift of this magnitude for many years," Thill wrote.
While Oracle may well eventually drain the well of potential new acquisitions to further fuel its growth, Thill wrote that this is still a number of years away.
The company should be able to grow and expand margins through fiscal 2011, "as it makes further purchases," Thill wrote.

Author: John Letzing @ www.marketwatch.com

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Oracle Reportedly Raises Prices 15%-20% On Major Pdts

Oracle (ORCL) has raised prices by 15%-20% “across all major product lines,” according to a brief research note this afternoon by Citigroup’s Brent Thill. Now, you want to keep in mind that Oracle negotiates prices with customers of any significant size, so the numbers on the price list are not necessarily what people actually pay. But that said, it still is an eye-opening development.

Thill says the company has not installed a price increase of this magnitude “for many years.”

According to the note, Thill examined the price list release earlier this week and compared it to previous lists to uncover the price increases.

So how can they get away with this in an soft IT spending environment? Thill says there are three reasons. One, the company is the first or second leading player in each of the categories in which they play. Two, it has been a long time since it raised prices this much. And three, he notes that customers rarely pay list prices after negotiating.

Oracle today is up 5 cents at $22.58.

Author: Eric Savitz @ http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily

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Overstock.com Improves Customer Shopping Experience with Oracle

Oracle® Coherence Integrates with Overstock.com’s Existing SOA Infrastructure to Reduce Critical Response Times
Redwood Shores, Calif.

* Overstock.com, an online "closeout" retailer offering discount, brand-name merchandise for sale over the Internet, has implemented Oracle® Coherence 3.3, in-memory data grid and component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, to enhance its SOA infrastructure and improve the search performance of its popular Web store, Oracle today announced.

* Overstock.com, ranked among the top 10 most trafficked retail Web sites on Cyber Monday 2007, foresaw potential bottlenecks in its infrastructure, given the massive and unpredictable loads experienced particularly during the busiest shopping day of the year.

* With Oracle Coherence, Overstock.com delivers fast and reliable access to frequently searched data, improving customer search response times by nearly 100 percent and guided navigation response times by over 200 percent. These improvements correlate to increased conversion rates and revenue.

* Start-to-finish, the Oracle Coherence implementation took just two months, leveraging the skilled Java development team at Overstock.com. Oracle Database and Oracle Real Application Clusters provide the data foundation for Overstock.com’s SOA architecture with Oracle Coherence providing added performance, scalability, resilience and reduced downtime.

* A component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Coherence enables users to push data closer to the application for faster access and greater resource utilization. By automatically and dynamically partitioning data in-memory across multiple servers, Oracle Coherence helps provide continuous data availability and transactional integrity, even in the event of a server failure. As a shared infrastructure, the offering combines data locality with local processing power to perform real-time data analysis, in-memory grid computations, and parallel transaction and event processing.

* In addition to utilizing Oracle Database and Oracle Coherence, Overstock.com also runs Oracle enterprise resource planning applications.

Source: www.oracle.com

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EMC Helps Oracle Customers Drive Cost Efficiency and Simplify Deployment

EMC Announces New Multi-Protocol Storage Solutions for Oracle OLTP and Reference Configurations for Oracle Data Warehouse.

EMC Corporation ,the world leader in information infrastructure solutions, today announced new EMC Proven Solutions and reference configurations that help customers
more efficiently and cost effectively deploy an EMC information infrastructure in Oracle transaction processing and data warehousing environments. Customers can more easily map the most appropriate storage platform to the Oracle use case at the lowest cost by taking advantage of EMC's tiered storage. The combination of industry-leading EMC and Oracle technologies, joint testing and new customer-focused technical documentation speeds and simplifies deployments of Oracle on EMC network
storage.

For Oracle OLTP environments, new solutions based on EMC Symmetrix(R) provide additional high performance, scalable infrastructure options for enterprise Oracle(R) Database deployments. New solutions based on EMC Celerra(R) NS Series multi-protocol storage platform unify production and development/test environments with disaster recovery for consolidated Oracle midsize enterprise environments. These new solutions complement the existing Oracle OLTP solutions based on EMC CLARiiON(R) and expand EMC's portfolio of Proven Solutions for Oracle OLTP.

Detailed best practices and reference architectures for Oracle OLTP solutions enable customers to take advantage of the optimized use of EMC's broad portfolio of information infrastructure, including:

-- Combined use of FC, NFS, and iSCSI protocols together with tiered
storage within the platform optimize storage infrastructure for
different classes of Oracle data files, recovery logs and flashback
data.
-- EMC writeable snapshots leveraged with EMC Celerra to speed Oracle
Database development, test and migration as well as backup/recovery.
-- EMC RecoverPoint provides heterogeneous remote data replication for all
business-critical information as well as data compression for advanced,
cost-effective disaster recovery.

For Oracle data warehouse environments, EMC has partnered with Oracle
to expand upon efforts within the Oracle Optimized Warehouse Initiative.
Complementing previously released optimized configurations with Dell, EMC
and Oracle have developed new configurations based on Intel dual core and
servers and EMC CLARiiON CX3 networked storage systems. Through using
optimized configurations, costumers can leverage pre-installed,
pre-configured solutions to help reduce the purchase cycle and streamline
data warehouse deployments.

EMC and Oracle have also documented a series of flexible configurations
based on Symmetrix and CLARiiON for Oracle data warehousing deployments,
helping customers balance cost with performance and growth at any scale of
Oracle data warehouse deployments. This includes support for Oracle
deployments in both "scale-up" SMP computing models or "scale-out" Oracle
low -cost Grid Computing models on Linux. Joint EMC and Oracle efforts
provide customers different sized configurations for a stated workload
requirement based on IBM, HP, Sun or Intel-based server environments.

"EMC and Oracle have a longstanding partnership with deep engineering
alignment. Development of solutions that optimize EMC information
infrastructure and Oracle technology enables our joint customers to easily
and rapidly deploy EMC solutions to accelerate the time to experience ROI
benefits," said EMC's Ritu Jyoti, Senior Director, Technology Alliances.
"The new EMC solutions specifically tailored for Oracle OLTP environments
drive efficiencies around unified tiered storage, backup and recovery,
advanced data protection."

"Many customers rely on Oracle and EMC technologies for scalable, high
performance data warehouse infrastructure," said Stephen Boyle, vice
president, Global Platform Alliances at Oracle. "Through our various
efforts with EMC, together we can offer our joint customers a full
complement of solutions suited for different profiles. Customers can select
the one that best suits their business and price, performance
requirements."

EMC's level of investment to supporting Oracle includes on-site
dedicated engineers and validation and documentation of EMC Proven
Solutions that provide customers predictable, repeatable results. EMC
actively supports Oracle's Global Technology Centers which showcase EMC and
Oracle solutions. Through these investments, EMC and Oracle can provide
customized assessment and design assistance for various workloads and
configurations. Today, more than 55,000 customers rely on EMC and Oracle
for best of breed products, deep knowledge and expertise to optimize their
information infrastructure.

About EMC

EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) is the world's leading developer and
provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions that enable
organizations of all sizes to transform the way they compete and create
value from their information. Information about EMC's products and services
can be found at http://www.EMC.com.

EMC, Celerra, CLARiiON and Symmetrix are registered trademarks of EMC
Corporation. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.


Source: EMC Corporation

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Savvytek wins Oracle EBS reimplementation project of Central Bank of Jordan

Through the USAID-funded SABEQ project, Savvytek has been awarded by Central Bank of Jordan the contract to assess and reimplement the existing Oracle eBusiness Suite Application Implementation.

Savvytek has been awarded this project in conjunction with their business partners, Y-Consult, a leading IT-Business Consulting provider in the region.

The key objective of this project is to support the Central Bank in improvement of their back office operating systems, including the Oracle eBusiness Suite Applications, in means to preserve and maximize its return on the Oracle eBusiness Suite investment. The project addresses technology factors such as the application functionality and technical infrastructure, as well as non-technology factors such as underlying business processes, organizational factors and staff training.

Mohammad Tahboub, President of Savvytek said, 'Savvytek's remarkable success in this project, and similar e-Services implementations through the past year, is recognized as a successful achievement for Savvytek and the IT sector in Jordan.'

Savvytek and Y-Consult have achieved the award through demonstrating high commitment and clear understanding of CBJ requirements. Savvytek committed to provide the CBJ with top notch expertise in the Oracle Applications field, to apply industry best practices in the re implementation process; in order to fulfill the Bank's technical and business goals of maximizing RoI and minimizing the total cost of ownership.

Source: www.ameinfo.com

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IBM Rules Middleware, While Oracle + BEA = Distant No. 2

The worldwide market for middleware totaled $14.1 billion in 2007, a 12.9% increase over the year before, according to a summary of the market published this week by Gartner.

Middleware trails databases as a major enterprise software market, but not by as much as it used to. Databases amounted to an $18.6 billion market in 2007, but at 12.1%, it's not growing as fast as middleware is. Business process management software, portals, business-to-business software, and enterprise service buses are being added to the application servers and application integration software in the category.

The Gartner report said the middleware market is outpacing enterprise software in general. "This technology area has not seen any noticeable signs of slowdown," said Fabrizio Biscotti, Gartner research director.

Oracle announced it was acquiring BEA Systems in January of this year and completed the purchase at the end of April. But Oracle and BEA revenues from last year added together still leave it a distant number two to market leader IBM.

IBM had revenues of $4.1 billion in 2007 for a 28.9% market share, an increase over its 28.3% share of the year before.

BEA Systems occupied the number two spot with revenues of $1.3 billion and 9.3% market share. Its share was down slightly from 9.8% the year before.

Oracle was number three, with $1.2 billion in revenues and 8.5% market share, an increase from 8% the year before. Oracle acquired BEA Systems as a Java middleware supplier. Middleware will be a crucial element of future application-buying decisions, with customer's wanting the middleware most attuned to their applications, Oracle believes.

Sterling Commerce was number four, with $443 million in revenues and 3.1% market share, down from 3.5% the year before.

Microsoft was number five, with $426 million and 3% market share, up from 2.4% the year before, the Gartner report said.

Author: Charles Babcock @ InformationWeek

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Oracle Corporation to Release Q4 2008 Earnings June 25

Oracle will release the fourth quarter earnings for 2008 on Wednesday, June 25 after the market close. A conference call will be held at 5:00 pm ET that evening to discuss the financial results. Interested parties may listen to the call by visiting oracle.com/investor.

Oracle Corporation is an enterprise software company. Oracle develops, manufactures, markets, distributes and services database and middleware software, as well as applications software that help organizations to manage their businesses.

Oracle is organized into two businesses: software and services. These businesses are further divided into five operating segments. Its software business consists of two operating segments, new software licenses, and software license updates and product support. Its services business consists of three operating segments, consulting, On Demand and education.

In April 2007, it announced the availability of Oracle Manufacturing Execution System for Discrete Manufacturing (Oracle MES for Discrete Manufacturing), a application that enables manufacturers to deploy Oracle Applications directly on the shop floor. In September 2007, it acquired Bridgestream, Inc. In December 2007, it acquired Moniforce. In April 2008, Oracle acquired BEA Systems, Inc.

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Oracle Previews On-demand 'social' CRM Module

Oracle is giving the industry another peek at the first in a planned wave of social networking-infused CRM (customer relationship management) applications this week at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston, but did not supply a release date.

Oracle Sales Prospector, which Oracle first previewed back at its OpenWorld show in November 2007, will ship sometime this quarter, according to Mark Woollen, vice president of CRM development at Oracle, which means anywhere from now to August under Oracle's financial calendar.

The software is supposed to help salespeople find the best leads by analyzing the buying history of companies, based on private and public information. Users contribute data from their sales transactions, which over time improves the database and leads to better recommendations, according to Oracle.

Such a concept banks on the contrary-seeming notion that salespeople -- often competitive souls by nature -- will buy into the idea of sharing potentially valuable information with their peers.

Woollen suggested it will be possible for users to create a "mutual back-scratching society," while acknowledging that they probably won't give away their "book of business" wholesale.

The software features a flashier user interface than typically seen in many CRM systems. On the back end, it is based on the company's Fusion Middleware platform and employs Oracle's data mining technology for analysis, according to Woollen.
But it should "not necessarily" be viewed as the first offering in the long-anticipated wave of Fusion Applications, the vendor's next-generation product line that will gradually replace its current family of software, Woollen said.

That's because Prospector is focused on social networking, as opposed to being a mainline CRM product, he said.

The second version of Sales Prospector will add integrations with transactional CRM systems, including Oracle's Siebel offerings and Salesforce.com, which will enable users who pinpoint a good lead in Prospector to "promote the prospect to an opportunity," Woollen said.

While Oracle is positioning the product as able to complement "virtually any" CRM system, Oracle plans to focus on selling to its own user base, but is also anticipating referrals from one user to another, Woollen said.

The company plans to release updates roughly twice a year, he said. Oracle declined to provide pricing information.

Additional "social CRM" modules are in the pipeline. They include Sales Campaigns, for creating and analyzing e-mail marketing efforts; and Sales Library, which revolves around sharing and rating sales presentations.

Author: Chris Kanaracus @ IDG News Service

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Oracle's Hazy Future

Quiz time. What is the world's top-seller of business software? If you guessed Microsoft, you were wrong. The answer is Oracle, which in 2007 also had the world's best-paid chief executive. Co-founder Larry Ellison took home $193 million last year.

Ellison earned his reward by taking a huge risk that has paid off. He decided to transform Oracle from a company that mostly sold database programs to one that sells many different kinds of software used in all kinds of industries, from energy to insurance. In less than four years, Ellison has strung together a vast array of specialty software makers, buying 42 companies for upwards of $30 billion. His best-known quarry: PeopleSoft, Siebel Systems and, most recently, BEA Systems.

A former Oracle employee who's impressed with the growth strategy is Peter Goldmacher, who now follows the Redwood Shores, Calif., giant for investment bank Cowen and Co. Says Goldmacher: "People were very skeptical. Ellison bought up companies past their prime when no one else cared. Now, Oracle offers so much more to its customers."

Goldmacher says that Oracle's sum is greater than its parts because owning so many products allows it to save money on sales, marketing and distribution -- among the top cost centers in the software industry. "Oracle customers can now buy a larger variety of products, leading to significant profit margin expansion," he says.

Oracle's shopping spree has made it the top seller of databases used by computer networks and products that allow computers and software to interact. Ellison says he also wants Oracle to be the leader in its third main product category, "enterprise" software for the business world. Those are the vital applications that make businesses productive, including automatic billing and online security. Germany's SAP ( SAP) currently holds the top spot in that area.

How well Oracle -- and its stock -- perform in the future will depend on how well the company succeeds at stitching together its many moving parts. Oracle must integrate many kinds of different software so they can talk to each other. Oracle calls this massive undertaking "Fusion" and has already released multiple software applications as part of the project. Fusion has been described as an effort to cherry-pick the best features and ideas and stitch them together with a rewritten software code.
Shares of Oracle, which closed at $22.46 on June 6, are flat so far this year, putting them slightly ahead of both Standard & Poor's 500-stock index and the technology-rich Nasdaq Composite Index. The stock is about 50% below its all-time high, set in 2000.

Oracle sells for a premium to the overall stock market, but that doesn't mean the stock is overpriced. The stock trades at 17 times the $1.36 per share that analysts expect Oracle to earn in the four quarters that end next November. That compares with a price-earnings ratio of 15 for the S&P 500 (based on estimated 2008 profits) and estimated profit growth for Oracle of 14.5% a year over the next few years.

Oracle is due to report results for the fourth quarter and its full fiscal year, which ended May 31, on June 25. For the quarter, according to Thomson Financial, analysts expect the company to earn 44 cents a share on revenues of $6.85 billion. For the fiscal year, they see earnings of $1.27 per share on sales of $22.17 billion. The results should provide some indication of whether Oracle's business customers are cutting back on spending because of the weak economy. That is a risk for the stock.

Despite the flurry of purchases, Oracle's balance sheet is strong. As of its last financial report, Oracle held cash and securities worth $10.5 billion, while it carried long-term debt of $6.2 billion.

Analyst Goldmacher views Oracle as a steady, modest grower and he says he thinks the stock is a "relatively undervalued asset." Analyst Robert Becker of Argus Research is also bullish, noting in a recent report that Oracle's "strong, recurring revenue stream will help prosperity continue." His 12-month price target for the stock is $27.

Author: Amy Bickers, Associate Editor @ Kiplinger.com

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BMW ORACLE Win In Marseille

BMW ORACLE Racing came, saw and conquered on Marseille's Rade Sud, winning the City of Marseille Trophy Regatta, the second event of the 2008 Audi MedCup Circuit.
I came, I saw, I conquered – then I left. USA-17, the American boat of BMW ORACLE Racing owned by Larry ELLISON and skippered by three times America’s Cup winner Russell COUTTS (NZL), the current MedCup Circuit champion skipper, won on her first and only outing planned for the 2008 series. The brand new all white TP52 missed the opening regatta of the season three weeks ago in Alicante and will take no further part in the six-regatta international Audi MedCup Circuit as the BMW ORACLE race crew focus on their main goal, winning the 33rd America’s Cup.

The City of Marseille Trophy Regatta came to a premature end on Saturday afternoon with the famous Mistral wind still blowing strong. At more than 28 knots on the Rade Sud race area, racing was abandoned without anyone even leaving the Vieux Port of Marseille, and USA-17, the overnight leaders, ended their one and only regatta Audi MedCup Circuit with a win. Just behind them was the Swedish boat Artemis with BMW ORACLE Racing team-mates on the identical Reichel/Pugh-designed hull. Artemis was six points adrift of the lead after eight races including one 40-miles coastal race.

The partnership between the two boats USA-17 and Artemis– the new TP52 of the Torbjörn TORNQVIST’s (SWE) 2007 champions – has been a key part of the American boat’s success in Marseille, which was helmed through parts of most races by ELLISON himself. Although the new USA-17 was only launched on 21 May, the settings and tuning notes gathered from Artemis in Alicante earlier last month were be applied directly to USA-17 to get her up to speed quickly.

After a modest sixth and fifth on the opening day, USA-17 won three races to complement their two third places, a second and a fourth places, always looking quick and at home over a regatta where the wind speed never fell below 15 knots.

“Marseille has been an awesome race track, really interesting with plenty of breeze, but the good thing as well is that it has always been changing with the shifts, so there has never been a ‘must-have’ side of the course. It has been about playing the shifts all the time,” said USA-17’s helm and co-strategist James SPITHILL (AUS).
“We exceeded our expectations by a lot at this event. We are more than happy to win. I think obviously Reichel/Pugh designers did a good job giving us a nice design especially in the conditions we had. We had the boat moving along nicely. The team combined well, quickly, and we can still improve a lot more, but we did enough to get there in the end,” said COUTTS.

“I would love to do more on this Circuit. It is a great circuit. It is not that we don’t want to do more, but we have to focus on the multihull for the America’s Cup. That’s obvious, but there will be a time when we come back into this class and enjoy it again.”

“And it is great for Artemis, our team effectively finished first and second, which is good. We really have exceeded my expectations. I was seriously saying to the guys beforehand that a mid-fleet place would be a result for us, given we practiced for just one day!!!

“We were fortunate that nothing broke because it is a brand new boat, and that the sails fitted. We were able to sail the boat reasonably effectively, those three factors really combined to make our success.”

Jose CUSI’s (ESP) Bribón, steered by Dean BARKER (NZL) with double Olympic medallist Ross MACDONALD (CAN) on tactics, arrived in Marseille in second place in the Audi MedCup Circuit standings. Bribón leaves France’s third city with a seven point lead over Artemis, the boat that moved furthest up the rankings.

Over a challenging regatta where three boats were eliminated from racing due to damage inflicted from collisions at the first mark of Thursday’s coastal race from which two boats were subsequently disqualified, Bribón finished third overall in the regatta. In spite of many requests for redress and a reduced fleet size at the end of the week Bribón’s consistency continues to prevail.

“We are more satisfied with the result than the performance in reality,” said Ignacio TRIAY, Bribón’s project manager and trimmer, “We had been suffering a lot with the conditions of wind and waves because we could feel that the boat was not going as well as the boats leading here in France. We have been working hard all week trying to find the right settings for the rig and also improving the crew work on board. We were not good enough to win the event here and we feel that maybe we could do better with these conditions, but on the other hand we are really satisfied because the boats that were going well in light airs in Alicante, were not so good here and vice versa. The boats with problems in light airs have done well here in Marseille. So we have been consistent – never brilliant, but always there, which is why we are leading the Audi MedCup circuit.”

Marseille has offered fabulous race conditions to the 14 TP52’s that participated. Strong winds, bright sunshine and an unique setting are but a few of the components of the regatta’s success. The race course area is peppered with an array of challenging shifts and is always able to produce great tactical racing, while the coastal race to the south east to picturesque Cassis, was set against one of the most stunning, rocky backdrops in the Mediterranean. Marseille is a great venue for the Audi MedCup and it is the intention of the Audi MedCup organisers to return here next year.

Source: Audi MedCup - http://2008.medcup.org

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Where next for Oracle's Ellison?

Oracle Corp Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison has spent $33.5 billion buying the software maker's way into markets for telecommunications, retail and financial-services programs.

To keep his promise to double sales to $50 billion by 2012, Ellison needs to find a target in another big-spending industry, says Sarah Friar, an analyst at Goldman, Sachs & Co, and the likely choice is healthcare.

"If you're chasing dollars, there's probably nothing bigger than healthcare," said Friar in San Francisco. "The software that healthcare companies use is archaic. That's a big opportunity for Oracle."

It's also not a new idea for Ellison. The 63-year-old architect of 40 takeovers since 2005 had considered the sector five years ago. Oracle's board reviewed a list of potential acquisitions that included Cerner Corp.

The healthcare software maker with programs for handling electronic medical records, accounting and billing now has a market value of $3.71 billion. While Oracle hasn't made a public bid for Cerner, it has already bought the two largest companies on the target list - PeopleSoft Inc and BEA Systems Inc. The board's April 2003 presentation was released during the federal antitrust lawsuit that tried to stop Oracle from buying PeopleSoft.

Deborah Hellinger, a spokeswoman for Redwood City, California-based Oracle, didn't respond to requests for comment.

In the United States alone, technology spending by heathcare companies will jump 16 percent to $50.2 billion by 2011, according to researcher Gartner Inc in Stamford, Connecticut. Hospitals and physicians' offices will account for almost two-thirds, based largely on a switch to electronic record keeping from paper. Insurance companies will make up the rest.

Analysts haven't published any recent reports about Oracle's plans for heathcare software. Friar first advised buying Oracle shares in April 2007, when the stock was 23 percent lower than today. She also recommended shares of Microsoft Corp ahead of the software maker's first and second-quarter earnings, correctly predicting increases in the stock.

"If Oracle made a large push into the healthcare space, it would be viewed very positively," said Daniel Niles, CEO of Neuberger Berman Technology Management in San Francisco. Neuberger Berman LLC, the parent company, added 7.96 million Oracle shares in the first quarter, bringing its holding to 36.3 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. "Health care is a growth industry, especially as more technology is used to tie medical data together."

Oracle was unchanged at $22.91 on Wednesday in NASDAQ Stock Market trading. The shares have advanced 1.5 percent this year.

Source: China Daily/Agencies

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DS Group Deploys Oracle Content Management

To secure and protect information assets, Dharampal Satyapal Group (DS Group), manufacturer of pan masala (Rajnigandha), adopted Oracle Content Management.

The organization opted for Oracle over vendors like Microsoft, Adobe, and EMC because of its advanced capabilities such as interoperability with different applications and also its ability to seal and protect any type of electronic document.

DS comprises of more than 2000 employees, 3 manufacturing units in Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, North East; 16 depots; 35 consignee sales agents and 1800 authorized dealers. This involves exchange of confidential data between DS and external vendors. The Oracle Information Rights Management (IRM), a component of Oracle Content Management, will help the company to secure, track, and protect sensitive and classified documents containing intellectual property, business proposals and proprietary communications between its employee base and extended business network.


Santosh Singh, GM (IT) of DS Group said, "With the group on an expansion mode, our directors and managers increasingly transmit sensitive documents among branches and departments. That's why we require a software solution which is user-friendly, secure and capable of helping us to track sensitive information irrespective of where it is stored and how it is used."

The solution will allow authorized users to add and securely exchange information via Internet. It will also allow prevent unauthorized saving and printing of documents. Oracle IRM software will manage and secure data both on the server side and at the end user device point. Every copy of the information - be it on the desktop, laptop, mobile wireless device, inside or outside the firewall - will be encrypted.

According to Harshal Pendse, director (Technology Initiatives) of Oracle India, the growing importance of the subsidiaries within the group, it was essential for DS to maintain a robust and secure data management system.

Oracle IRM protects all types of documents - from MS Office files to images to PDF files. It includes features such as expiry, print, and copy protection. These help to assure nobody other than the users access and work on these documents. It also allows tracing of any unauthorized user who tries to access these documents.

Source: www.cxotoday.com

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DMTF Announces CA, Oracle and VMware As New Board Members

The Distributed Management Task Force, Inc. (DMTF(R)), the industry organization leading the development, adoption and promotion of interoperable management standards and initiatives, today announced the addition of three new companies to its board of directors. Oracle, VMware and CA step up to the board level - joining industry heavyweights AMD, Broadcom, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, HP, Hitachi, Ltd., IBM, Intel Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Novell, Sun Microsystems, and Symantec Corporation - to help drive the overall direction, strategy and activity of DMTF.

These three new board members join DMTF to collaborate with other industry-leading companies on systems management-specification development, validation, promotion and industry-wide adoption. Together the board of directors will collaborate to set cross-industry priorities, promote interoperability for enterprise and Internet environments, foster alliance partnerships, and lead the organization's committee work.

"The DMTF specifications and its key principles of interoperability and portability are an important enabler to the evolution of the virtualization market," said Winston Bumpus, director of standards architecture for VMware. "As a new DMTF board member, VMware looks forward to bringing an important perspective to the future direction of the organization."

"The standards being developed by DMTF will help organizations minimize operational costs and optimize their systems investments by unifying and streamlining management of their IT resources," said James Saliba, vice president, intellectual property at CA. "With DMTF board membership, CA can now more effectively influence these standards to address the real-world needs of the heterogeneous enterprise."
"Open management standards are the key to achieving integrated management across the levels of the solution stack," said Tony DiCenzo, Director Standards, Systems and Applications Management Products Group, Oracle. "Oracle is pleased to join the DMTF board of directors to support the development and promotion of industry standards that support the enterprise management ecosystem."

James Saliba from CA, Tony DiCenzo from Oracle, and Winston Bumpus from VMware join DMTF as board representatives. Other individuals representing the board member companies include:

-- Valerie Kane, AMD

-- Uri Elzur, Broadcom

-- Jon Hass, Dell

-- Wayne Adams, EMC

-- Hiro Kishimoto, Fujitsu

-- Jishnu Mukerji, HP

-- Nobutoshi Sagawa, Hitachi, Ltd.

-- Mike Baskey, IBM

-- Kevin Cline, Intel Corporation

-- Josh Cohen, Microsoft Corporation

-- Larry Russon, Novell

-- Mark Carlson, Sun Microsystems

-- Gary Phillips, Symantec Corporation

"We are thrilled to welcome Oracle, CA and VMware to the DMTF board of directors. As new board members, they will bring additional energy and leadership into the organization," said Mike Baskey, DMTF chairman. "The past achievements and current goals of these companies make them ideal board members for DMTF to help increase our innovation and maintain our leadership in collaborative development of global standards for IT management."

About DMTF

With more than 4,000 active participants representing 44 countries and nearly 200 organizations, the Distributed Management Task Force, Inc. (DMTF) is the industry organization leading the development, adoption and promotion of interoperable management standards and initiatives. DMTF management technologies are critical to enabling management interoperability among multi-vendor systems, tools, and solutions within the enterprise. By deploying solutions that support DMTF standards, IT managers can choose to deploy a mix of systems and solutions that best meet their users' needs, while reducing management complexity and total cost of ownership. Information about the DMTF technologies and activities can be found at www.dmtf.org.

Source: Business Wire

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Oracle E-Business Suite implements Reva for RFID data

Reva Systems, the leading RFID Network Infrastructure provider, announced that it is working with Oracle to enable Oracle E-Business Suite customers to capture and utilize high quality RFID data.

“The powerful combination of Oracle at the enterprise level and Reva at the edge enables world class companies to harness the value of RFID for process improvement and sustainable competitive advantage across industries, geographies and multiple Oracle Applications,” said Jon Chorley, Oracle’s vice president of SCM product strategy.

“Reva makes implementing RFID simple by supporting a structured interface to Oracle Applications. Reva’s technology transforms RFID data into superior asset visibility and supply chain information allowing Oracle users to rely on RFID for everyday operations.”

“The real time visibility and process improvements that RFID can deliver will generate value for a wide spectrum of enterprises,” said Buck Devashish, Reva vice president of business development.

“Reva complements Oracle’s vision for deploying RFID. By implementing Reva at the edge, Oracle users can quickly and easily incorporate accurate, useful RFID data into the Oracle E-Business Suite at the enterprise level.” Reva Systems to Deliver Integration of RFID Data for the Oracle EBusiness Suite

Reva TAPs are purpose built RFID Network Infrastructure appliances that provide RFID device control and data processing.

TAPs install at a facility level to optimally manage the operations of RFID readers and other equipment from many leading providers, collect the raw tag data, process the data for accuracy and then pass only relevant RFID information to the Oracle E-Business Suite.

Reva also provides a set of enterprise RFID management tools which Oracle users can rely on to remotely operate RFID infrastructure and devices across global sites. Reva Systems is a Certified Advantage Partner in the Oracle PartnerNetwork.

Source: www.fibre2fashion.com

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Qtrax deploys Oracle's infrastructure software

Qtrax, a free, legal peer-to-peer music service with an ad-supported delivery model, has implemented Oracle's infrastructure software to provide better IT architecture necessary to deliver its global service.

Qtrax's implementation includes Oracle Database, Oracle Real Application Clusters, Oracle Enterprise Manager and components of Oracle Fusion Middleware including Oracle Application Server and Oracle Coherence.

According to Oracle, with this software now in place, Qtrax will have the ability to support millions of concurrent users and begin offering an escalating catalog in June.

David Sharpley, vice president of product marketing and channels at Oracle Communications, said: "Qtrax has designed an innovative business model, which monetizes the demand for peer-to-peer music sharing, while providing users with a free experience. Oracle delivers a reliable technology solution, helping Qtrax ensure its systems are up and running to meet customer needs."

Source: www.cbronline.com

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