Oracle shareholders criticize CEO Larry Ellison's $72-million pay package

They are pressing for a say on compensation at the software maker, whose 29% profit growth last fiscal year trailed the chief executive's 38% pay increase.

Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison, the fourth-richest man in America, is drawing criticism from some shareholders for a $72-million pay package that is 12 times bigger than the median pay of chief executives in the technology industry.

Ellison, who proposed the 38% raise and won approval from a committee of board members, is now the second-best-paid CEO of a public company in the U.S. He received about $1.7 million less than Merrill Lynch & Co. chief John Thain did in 2007. Oracle's market value is almost three times Merrill's.

Shareholders are pressing for a say on compensation at Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle, the second-largest computer software maker, whose 29% profit growth last fiscal year trailed Ellison's pay increase. The proposal, by the religious group Marianist Province of the U.S., is winning support from activist shareholders such as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the California Public Employees' Retirement System, or CalPERS.

"Ellison's compensation was already sky-high and didn't need to go higher," said Scott Adams, the American Federation's pension and investment analyst in Oakland.

The "say on pay" plan, which goes before investors at an Oct. 10 meeting, could get at least a third of the votes, Adams said. Even though that would fall short of the majority needed to pass, it still would show shareholder concern about Ellison's pay, he said. The American Federation's fund held 73,000 shares of Oracle as of May 15.

Groups filed similar proposals at 92 companies this year, up from 54 in 2007, Adams said. The insurance provider Aflac Inc. and phone carrier Verizon Communications Inc. are among the companies now adding such advisory votes.

The pay for Ellison, 64, doesn't include the $544 million he made last year by exercising stock options. His package was examined and ranked in a study by Graef Crystal, a former executive compensation consultant who is now a columnist for Bloomberg.

Crystal included Ellison's $1-million salary and $10.8-million bonus, plus $1.45 million in "other pay" to cover the cost of items such as his home security system and air travel. The study valued Ellison's options granted during the year at $58.8 million, a more conservative estimate than Oracle's figure, $71.4 million.

Oracle did not respond to requests for comment. In the Aug. 20 filing outlining Ellison's compensation, the software company said he had requested the pay increase, which was approved by compensation committee members Jeffrey S. Berg, Hector Garcia-Molina and Naomi O. Seligman. They cited an "objective of providing incentives for superior performance."

Forbes magazine estimated Ellison's worth at $26 billion in September, putting him behind Bill Gates, Warren E. Buffett and Sheldon Adelson, chief of Las Vegas Sands Corp.

Ellison's stake in the company he co-founded in 1977 accounted for most of that wealth. Gates is chairman of Microsoft Corp., the world's biggest software producer; Buffett is chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Ellison held 1.15 billion Oracle shares as of Feb. 15, more than 22% of the stock outstanding, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Oracle awarded Ellison an additional 7 million options in fiscal 2008, filings show.

"That kind of package becomes a red flag for investors," said Charles Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware.

"Would he leave if they didn't give him that much?" Elson asked. Would he work less hard?"

Source: Bloomberg News

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Oracle Tabs New CFO, Reporting To Safra Catz

Jeff Epstein most recently served as CFO of Oberon Media, a privately held Internet game technology provider and publisher. Oracle named a new chief financial officer on Wednesday and said he will report to Co-President Safra Catz, who had held the finance post for three years after two CFOs quit within a year.

Jeff Epstein, 52, will become executive vice president and CFO, effective in September, Oracle (NSDQ: ORCL) said. He most recently served as CFO of Oberon Media, a privately held Internet game technology provider and publisher, and had also worked at DoubleClick, King World Productions and ADVO.

Catz, 46, is co-president of Oracle with Charles Phillips, 49. Both report to Larry Ellison, the 64-year-old software industry icon who has been Oracle's CEO since he founded the company in 1977.

Catz is responsible for Oracle's finances and operations, while Phillips manages the sales and marketing efforts of the world's third-largest software maker.

Benchmark Co analyst Brent Williams said he was not familiar with Epstein, but did not read much into the change since Catz was retaining control of Oracle's finance organization.

"She is staying with the company," Williams said. "You can end up trying to read too much into the tea leaves."

Catz, a former investment banker, has been CFO of Redwood City, California-based Oracle since the November 2005 resignation of Greg Maffei, a former Microsoft executive who unexpectedly left less than five months after joining the software maker.

Catz also served as interim CFO for four months before Maffei was hired, after the resignation of his predecessor, Harry You.

Oracle shares ticked higher following the news to $22.40, after a Nasdaq close of $22.34. (Reporting by Jim Finkle; Editing by Gary Hill)

Source: www.reuters.com

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Microsoft and Oracle databases gain share vs IBM

Sales of business database software made by Microsoft and Oracle are holding up strongly this year after the companies gained share from IBM in 2007, according to market research firm Gartner.

"Microsoft and Oracle continue to make advancements in certain faster-growing areas," Gartner analyst Colleen Graham said in an interview. "IBM continues to struggle."

Sales of Microsoft's database software climbed 16.5 percent to $3.1 billion (1.68 billion pounds) last year, buoyed by growth in Asia and Eastern Europe. The No. 3 player in the market also expanded sales to mid-sized businesses in North America, Graham said.

Microsoft's market share widened to 18.1 percent from 17.6 percent, according to data that Gartner released to Reuters on Tuesday.

Graham said that Microsoft's software is gaining popularity because it generally includes more bells and whistles in basic versions that rival software from Oracle and IBM.

"The product is cheaper," she said.

Sales at Oracle, by far the market leader, rose 14.9 percent in 2007 to $8.3 billion. Its market share grew to 48.6 percent from 47.9 percent.

Oracle's strategy for boosting sales is to introduce new features that it can sell to its broad, existing customer base, an approach that Graham said has paid off.

"Oracle is like a really tricked-out car. You can get all this really great stuff, but you have to pay extra for all the options," Graham said.

While sales at No. 2 player International Business Corp rose 10 percent to $3.5 billion, its market share contracted to 20.7 percent last year from 21.3 percent, according to Gartner.

One factor hampering IBM's growth rate is that customers who buy its database software tend to use the programs on IBM hardware, whose sales are not growing as quickly as the systems that are most often used with databases from Microsoft and Oracle, Graham said.

Microsoft's database, by contrast, is generally used with the software maker's own Windows Server operating system. Oracle's database is typically run on the widely used Linux operating system.

Database sales at the three companies accounted for about 87 percent of the $17.1 billion global market for database software last year, according to Gartner.

Author: (Reporting by Jim Finkle; Editing by Steve Orlofsky) at uk.reuters.com

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ReadSoft partners with Dinero Solutions to expand North American coverage of Oracle Accounts Payable Market

ReadSoft North America has signed an integration partner agreement and subcontractor agreement for Dinero to assist and lead ReadSoft Oracle AP automation projects in the US and Canada. At the signing of the agreement between ReadSoft and Dinero, Dinero signs first customer project for revenues estimated at $150,000 USD to be implemented in the fall of 2008.

"This partnership is yet another example of the success we are experiencing on the North American market" said Jan Andersson, President and CEO of ReadSoft. "The growth we've seen on this market during the last year, in a market where focus lies on cost cutting and down sizing, is tremendous and gives us strong faith for the future in North America as well as in other markets facing the same economic trends."

In an effort to expand the availability of resources to the Oracle AP automation market ReadSoft sought out an Oracle integration partner that has the experience and bandwidth to assist in the sales and deliveries of the ReadSoft Oracle certified solutions. The contract executed between the two companies will allow Dinero Solutions to resell and install the ReadSoft Oracle AP automation solutions as well as be a certified subcontractor on ReadSoft direct business.

Since Dinero Solutions was founded in early 2000, it has helped numerous companies implement complete end-to-end Oracle ERP solutions and specialized modules such as; Projects and Assets. The company also assists firms interested in selecting suite software to meet their needs for customer relationship management, supply chain management, financial accounting, human resource and enterprise reporting. Dinero Solutions is an Oracle Member Partner and "On-Demand" Certified Implementer.
"Dinero is focused on Oracle solutions that bring financial value to our customers and that can be implemented in a cost effective manner" said Chris Goeckel, President of Dinero Solutions. "We feel the ReadSoft Oracle Solutions combined with our professional services experience will deliver true value to our customers"

"The Oracle AP automation solutions that we bring to the market are growing in acceptance and usage" said Bob Fresneda, President of ReadSoft North America. "This Oracle market for AP automation is in the early stages of significant growth and a partner company with the expertise of Dinero will be a great asset to our customers and our North American team"

About Dinero:
Dinero Solutions, headquartered in Duluth, Georgia, is a recognized leader in the Southeast and has been providing innovative enterprise software solutions to mid-market and Fortune 1000 companies around the world. Dinero Solutions focuses on helping Utility, Technology, Financial Services, and Retail companies implement Oracle Applications to build a competitive business advantage


For additional information, contact
ReadSoft AB
Jan Andersson, CEO, ReadSoft
Phone: +46 708 - 37 66 00
Jonna Opitz, Vice President, Corporate Communications
Phone: +46 733 - 37 86 68
jonna.opitz@readsoft.com


About ReadSoft
ReadSoft is a leading global provider of software solutions for Document Automation. ReadSoft's software enables companies to automate document processes such as data entry, classification, ERP matching, workflows, e-invoicing etc. The results are faster and less expensive document processing, and increased control. ReadSoft is by far the world's number one choice for invoice automation solutions. Specialized solution labs for SAP, Oracle, Microsoft and Capture processes ensure cutting edge solutions with great customer value. Since the start in 1991, ReadSoft has grown to a worldwide group with operations in 16 countries on five continents and a network of local and global partners. The head office is located in Helsingborg, Sweden and the ReadSoft share is traded on the Nordic Stock Exchange Small Cap list. For more information about ReadSoft, please visit www.readsoft.com.

Source: www.huginonline.com

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Oracle's CEO tops pay scale

Revision of rankings places Ellison ahead of other leaders. Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison, a longtime fixture on the list of the world's richest people, is now ensconced atop the Associated Press' rankings of the top-paid chief executives in the United States.

Never shy about flaunting his estimated $25 billion fortune, Ellison established himself as the best-paid CEO among major U.S. companies by persuading Oracle to award him a fiscal 2008 pay package valued at $84.6 million, according to the Associated Press' calculations.

The total compensation, disclosed late Wednesday in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, catapulted Ellison to the top of the Associated Press' annual analysis of CEO pay.

With a pay package valued at $83.1 million, Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain held that distinction in June when the Associated Press released its 2008 analysis of executive compensation at more than 400 large companies.

The details about Ellison's compensation weren't available at that time because Oracle operates on an unusual fiscal year ending in May. The anomaly lets Oracle wait until late summer to make the SEC-mandated disclosures about Ellison's pay.

The rankings cover disclosures made within the same calendar year, meaning Ellison could be surpassed if an SEC filing during the next four months reveals that another CEO received an even bigger pay package.

For now, there are only two changes in the list of the 10 best-paid executives. With Ellison taking No. 1, Occidental Petroleum Corp. CEO Ray Irani fell out of the top 10.

In another revision lower on the pay ladder, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch now occupies the 14th spot on the list, with a compensation package valued at $30.1 million. News Corp., which operates on a fiscal year ending in June, also disclosed Murdoch's awards this week.

The calculations of total pay include executives' salaries, bonuses, incentives, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year. The figure often differs from the numbers listed by companies.

Most of Ellison's fiscal 2008 compensation consisted of 7 million stock options designed to give him an incentive to increase Oracle's future market value. The options, valued at $71.2 million, vest during the next four years and expire in July 2017.

The analysis doesn't factor in windfalls the executives generate by exercising stock options awarded in previous years.

Ellison stood out in this category, too, raking in nearly $544 million by cashing in 36 million stock options during Oracle's last fiscal year.

Excluding those stock option gains, Ellison's latest pay package represented a 38 percent raise from fiscal 2007, when his compensation was valued at $61.2 million. That ranked Ellison as the second-best paid CEO, behind Yahoo's then-CEO, Terry Semel, who got a package valued at $71.7 million.

While Semel resigned as Yahoo's CEO 14 months ago under shareholder pressure, Ellison, 64, hasn't given any indication that he plans to end his 31-year reign at Oracle any time soon.

Author: Michael Liedtke @ www.chron.com

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Oracle to star in NAB's online plans

NATIONAL Australia Bank has given a crucial component of its legacy systems overhaul to Indian banking software developer i-flex, which may result in some of the bank's staff being left out of the early stages of the project.

NAB's new Star Bank project does not have physical branches and offers banking services through call centres and the internet.

It will be developed using i-flex banking software technology.

The Indian banking software company will be involved in designing the platform that will replace NAB's core banking systems and will plan the replacement process. I-flex will deliver a range of services, including support activities such as professional and application management, analytics and consulting, according to its local office.

Typically, i-flex uses both onshore and offshore resources to complete a project, but it is uncertain how this would break down for the NAB project.

Oracle staff were on-site at NAB last week sizing up the technology landscape, and the bank's employees have expressed concern over their future after comments from the management that they would not be involved in the first phase.

NAB spokeswoman Kerrina Lawrence said the development work would be split between its staff and Oracle, but the final make-up had not been decided.

At this stage there were no plans to host Star Bank offshore, she said.

"NAB has not decided against using its staff in the process. It is anticipated that NAB will use a mix of internal and external skills," Ms Lawrence said.
The bank moved a step closer to identifying that balance yesterday, as it combined two of its biggest technology teams, enterprise services technology and technology banking Australia, to improve the bank's capability to service the next-generation platform.

The plans are detailed in an internal memo obtained by The Australian.

"It recognises that we'll be rebalancing our investment between business as usual and NexGen and must therefore consolidate our capabilities to free up capacity to focus on the significant transition activity ahead," NAB chief information officer Michelle Tredenick writes.

The combined division has about 1300 staff, half of NAB's IT workforce, with leadership teams reporting to technology banking managing director Craig Bright. Former enterprise services technology head Stephen Phillips has been appointed as technology lead for Star Bank.

The restructure will be bedded down over the next two months, under the watch of an integration manager and Mr Bright, and Ms Tredenick said more structural changes could be rolled out to other business units.

"We'll continue to progressively evolve our model over time as we further progress our transformation agendas."

NAB has embarked on an offshoring program over the past couple of years. It started with back office and finance and credit card processing functions, but gathered pace this year with the IT outsourcing program.

The first wave of IT outsourcing affected jobs in several legacy banking system areas.

As well, some payments and enterprise resource planning functions were sent offshore to Indian outsourcers Satyam and Infosys.

NAB is in the final stages of reviewing outsourcing wave two, which could lead to up to 400 jobs in technology banking and the MLC wealth management business going offshore.

Planning is believed to have begun on outsourcing wave three.

Several sources have said any legacy replacement work that is not done by Oracle will be sent offshore to Infosys and Satyam.

Ms Tredenick told staff the offshore trend would continue in line with its technology transformation program, code-named NEOS.

She also said it would use offshore resources to do some of the work for the core banking project.

"NAB has always used hosting and still uses a combination of hosting, having some of our internal people host the platforms and develop the platforms, and working with external suppliers," Ms Tredenick said. "We've done that for the past 10 to 15 years and will continue to do that."

However, she also expected the next-generation project to create more local jobs as the scale and intensity of work increased over five years.

Technology banking general manager Craig Bright said recently that technology staff numbers could fall to less than 1000 over the next five years.

The figure was noted by several NAB employees during an exchange in an informal question and answer session at a technology team event.

Author: Mahesh Sharma @ www.australianit.news.com.au

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Oracle launches VM templates

Oracle has launched its VM templates to enable rapid deployment of enterprise software.

They offer a time-saving approach to deploying a fully configured software stack by providing pre-installed and pre-configured images of enterprise software.

They also enable customers to reduce installation, configuration, and ongoing maintenance costs.

Oracle VM supports both Oracle and non-Oracle applications and offers customers scalable, low-cost server virtualization backed by the IT major’s world-class support.

The templates also help eliminate the need to install new products from scratch thereby offering faster time to market. Customers can simply copy Oracle VM templates to the server where Oracle VM resides and they will have a fully installed and configured software environment.

“Customers are experiencing increased challenges as the volume of information in their data centre continues to grow rapidly, leading to added hardware and energy costs and a depletion of server resources,” said Wim Coekaerts, vice president Linux Engineering, Oracle.

“The combination of Oracle VM templates and Oracle VM offers customers the full benefits of server virtualization, leading to further lowering the cost of data centre operations and contributing to green IT,’ he added.

Source: www.tradearabia.com

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UC4 Software Joins the Oracle Modernisation Alliance

UC4 Software has joined the Oracle Modernisation Alliance (OMA). OMA is an alliance of technology providers who have teamed with Oracle to help legacy IT organisations investigate architectures for IT modernisation to open systems. The workload automation provider brings more than two decades of application integration and enterprise job scheduling expertise to the OMA.

UC4 Software is part of the modernisation framework and provides operations excellence and workload management solutions to customers demanding mainframe reliability and control from distributed IT systems.

UC4 Software has the familiar functionality of a mainframe job scheduler and quickly integrates with business applications and open systems to manage business processing across applications and operating platforms. Customers can gain central control of existing mainframe schedulers or use UC4's proven conversion routines to migrate workload onto its workload automation tools.

Source: http://home.nestor.minsk.by

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Arvind Selects Oracle Retail To Support Growth Plans

Arvind Ltd, the company which operates its retail chain under the name 'Megamart', has selected Oracle Retail merchandising, planning, supply chain and stores applications to support its aggressive growth plans as it seeks to achieve leadership in fashion and value retailing in India.

The company recently opened the second of its large format value store, Megamart Outlet Centre, in Pune (the first being in Chennai), and is planning to establish more than 250 large and small format stores across the country over the next three to four years at an investment of over $100 million.

According to the company, Oracle Retail will help support these plans by providing Arvind with an integrated platform to manage its retail processes from supply chain to stores. Oracle Retail and other business applications will be deployed through Arvind's network of a centralised distribution centre and other regional distribution centres across India.

"Upon evaluating the retail software market, we identified that the best practices embedded in Oracle Retail applications will help us in many ways, including creating a product mix based on our customers' buying patterns and forecasting customer behaviour based on historical data. Oracle Retail will give us a head start as we plan our stores network," said J Suresh, chief executive officer, Arvind Brands & Retail.

With this deployment, Arvind expects to increase its inventory turns, improve its forecast accuracy, enable shorter replenishment lead times and overall improve its service levels to the current 93 Megamart stores and Outlet Centres.

Source: www.efytimes.com

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Oracle tops records in incremental revenue

Local Oracle partners have recorded over 100 per cent incremental revenue through Oracle technology and application implementations in the Sri Lankan market over the past two years.

Country Manager, Sri Lanka and Maldives Oracle Dr. Vickum Senanayake said the Sri Lankan market has achieved the set targets of the Oracle Corporation with the current economic condition in the country driving companies to invest in information technology.

Partners such as Millenium IT, MTI, DMS, Interblocks have reported being able to increase their Oracle practices by up to 100 per cent by recruiting skilled Orcale Certified professionals to service customers in Sri Lanka.

"For the first time in Sri Lanka, Oracle is organising Oracle PartnerNetwork day (OPN) to recognise our local partners. Through this OPN, we expect to consolidate our local partners and recruit new partners," Senanayake said.

"At the moment Oracle has 25 local partners in the country. Partners like MTI develop their own solutions using Oracle technologies targeting local and global companies. Sri Lanka has high growth potential in this segment. Our partners play a vital part in our local operations," he said.

Regional Director SAGE West Oracle Corporation Samina Rizwan said Oracle will be looking into industries where real technology is needed in Sri Lanka with their partners.

"We will be focusing on the public and the export sector in Sri Lanka.

"There is a lot of growth potential in middle market companies in the manufacturing and retail sector. Regional Managing Director - ASEAN Managing Director - Oracle Thailand Oracle Asia Pacific Natasak Rodjanapiches said Oracle will collaborate with local universities for using Oracle technologies for their assignments as their CSR initiative.

"The main objective of this is to make local future IT workers more competitive in the global arena," he said.

Author: Anjana Samarasinghe @ www.dailynews.lk

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NAB picks Oracle for IT overhaul

NATIONAL Australia Bank has selected Oracle to roll out the first phase of its $1 billion core banking revamp.
In an announcement made to the Australian Securities Exchange today, NAB said Oracle would replace its core banking systems over the next five years.

The phase one rollout will involve the delivery of a platform for a new business division called Star Direct.

The Star Direct business will include a specialised, low cost, high service direct bank that will be launched later this year, NAB said.

“This is a significant investment for NAB and we plan to take a very phased and measured approach over the next five years,” NAB chief information officer Michelle Tredenick said.

“Our existing IT systems have served the business well to date, however they are not sufficient to support our future strategic direction.”

The second and subsequent phases of NAB’s core banking overhaul will be rolled out in parallel. Planning for the following stages is expected to take another six months, NAB said.

All the big four banks are expected to undergo core system upgrades in the coming years.

Commonwealth Bank recently announced its four-year, $580 million core banking modernisation project would be undertaken by German software vendor SAP and systems integrator Accenture.

ANZ announced it would overhaul legacy systems in its Asian operation, replacing them with the Infosys Finacle platform. The bank also said it would expand this platform to its local operations.

Westpac too was slated to modernise its core banking systems but the process has hit complications as it irons out a proposed merger with St George.

The process of integrating Westpac and St George’s technology operations would involve consolidating not only the core banking operations, but other infrastructure, including the communications network and hardware.

Source: Mitchell Bingemann @ www.australianit.news.com.au

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Oracle acquires Global Knowledge Software

Oracle will acquire Global Knowledge Software for an undisclosed sum, to boost it software training offerings.

Global Knowledge Software (GKS) produces programmes that train users on different business software, including that from Oracle, Microsoft and SAP.

“Our customers are looking for a consistent, cost effective training solution across the enterprise to speed software adoption by end-users,” said Ed Abbo, Senior Vice President of Oracle Application Development.

GKS’ products will complement Oracle’s existing training software, Oracle Tutor, along with its learning management software, iLearning and eLearning. Oracle intends to form a global sales unit to extend all its software training offerings across the enterprise.

The transaction is expected to close in the third calendar quarter of 2008.


Author: Rosalie Marshall @ www.itweek.co.uk

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