Open letter to Ellison critical of Oracle strategy

TechWeb Global CIO writer Bob Evans recently published an open letter to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. The heart of the note illustrates the point that Oracle's current strategy remains a burden to customers and that they are (finally) starting to get fed up.

The issue that needs your fresh thinking and attention in today's brutal economic climate is the one-size-fits-all, nonnegotiable 22 percent annual maintenance fee Oracle charges your customers.

As you well know, those customers are desperately trying to cut costs and conserve cash, and are exploring every possible option for doing so. You can help those customers very directly while also advancing Oracle's cause in a variety of ways by being willing to modify your stance on that single-tier, unmodifiable policy.

The author primarily takes issue with maintenance fees, but the underlying theme is that users have already paid for the software and that they aren't seeing much value in what is described as "maintenance." And Oracle doesn't seem to care a whole lot about it.

Mr. Ellison, it's easy to see why you like the current system, where someone pays, for example, $4,000,000 for a software license and then pays you $880,000 every year for "maintenance." And maybe CIOs will continue to find that's a fair exchange of value. But maybe they won't--as you know better than just about anyone, the IT industry is an archetype of creative destruction, where faster/better/cheaper alternatives relentlessly stalk, attack, and kill older/slower/more-expensive models.

Perhaps the model you and Charles Phillips and the entire Oracle global team have built is so extraordinarily singular that it will endure forever and remain unassailable from the forces that have ground down every previous eternal model in the technology business. But maybe not.

Definitely worth a read--this thread of "long-gone customer value" is what open source and software-as-a-service companies thrive on. The big vendor backlash is just starting.

Author: Dave Rosenberg @ news.cnet.com

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Oracle loses Melbourne to TechOne

The City of Melbourne (CoM) will ditch its Oracle business management and reporting systems in favour of local vendor TechnologyOne under a deal worth $3 million.

CoM signed the contract in December last year, it revealed today, with an initial contract value of just under $2 million and an expected $1 million in support and maintenance over the next five years. An Oracle Australia spokesperson declined to comment.

ASX-listed TechnologyOne will commence implementing the new systems in February, which will cover CoM's financial reporting, supply chain, projects, contracts, human resource and payroll, and grants management. The project is expected to be finalised in two years.

City of Melbourne CEO Kathy Alexander said in a statement issued by TechnologyOne that she hoped the new system would improve the accuracy of information the council had. "We will rely less on manual data entry, which in turn will ensure that there is less duplication and more efficient use of our employees' time," she said.

She also hoped the new system will improve the council's modelling and analysis capabilities.

Author: Liam Tung @ ZDNet.com.au

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Oracle Exec Shares Predictions on Information Management

Oracle Corp. President Charles Phillips to speak about the future of enterprise information management, followed by expert panel discussion On February 12th, a panel of enterprise technology and wireless superstars will take the stage to talk about the future of information management. Charles Phillips, President of Oracle Corp. will kick off the program with a keynote presentation: "It's always been, continues to be, and will always be about information and information management." Phillip's presentation is a part of "Exploring the Future of Enterprise Systems," a live satellite broadcast from Atlanta presented by the MIT Enterprise Forum of Atlanta (MITEF) in collaboration with the Oracle Applications User Group, Southeastern Software Association, and the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce's Technology Marketing Council. With the volume of information growing exponentially, companies must find ways to manage, process and deliver that information effectively.

This discussion and panel will address ways to manage information and will advise how to differentiate burned-out buzzwords from technologies and methodologies that will form the bedrock of enterprise computing of the future. As a business key asset, information must be sorted, shared and analyzed so that it enables better business decision-making. This program will focus on technologies that do just that, and will include discussions around newly-developing computing and management paradigms such as virtualization and cloud computing. Following Charles Phillip's keynote address, moderator, Susan Hoffman of Georgia Public Broadcasting will be joined by a panel of experts including Eran Gil, VP Business Development of Cloud Sherpas and Matt Trevathan, Solutions Architect/Master Inventor, IBM Interactive.

About the Speakers Charles Phillips is President of Oracle Corporation and a member of the Board of Directors. He joined Oracle in 2003 and is responsible for global field operations including consulting, marketing, sales, alliances and channels, and customer programs. Prior to joining Oracle, Mr. Phillips was with Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated, a global investment bank. Mr. Phillips holds a BS in Computer Science from the United States Air Force Academy, an MBA from Hampton University, and a JD from New York Law School.
Eran Gil, VP Business Development of Cloud Sherpas, is responsible for the company’s sales efforts with the goal of expanding new business revenues and strategic partnerships. Prior to Cloud Sherpas, Mr. Gil led the international expansion for an independent VAR, doubling sales in under two years. He also served as a strategy leader for Brighthouse, one of Atlanta’s leading marketing and sales consultancies. Matt Trevathan, Solutions Architect/Master Inventor, IBM Interactive, has over ten years experience in the IT industry with a focus on telecommunications. Mr. Trevathan has experience architecting high performance clusters and virtualized environments at multiple tier-one telecommunications companies and digital media companies. He has patents or patents pending on utilizing grid services, grid fault tolerance and grid based compilers. More InformationThis event will be held on Thursday, February 12, 2009 at the Georgia Public Broadcasting Studios, located at 260 14th Street, NW in Atlanta. An MIT Forum members-only reception will be held at 5:00 PM. Networking and light dinner begin at 5:45 PM; the program and live broadcasting will begin in the studios at 7:00 PM. For additional information or to purchase tickets, visit www.mitforumatlanta.org. About MITEF
The MIT Enterprise Forum of Atlanta is a volunteer, non-profit organization whose mission is to provide educational programs and services that promote and strengthen innovation and entrepreneurship at the intersection of business and technology in the Southeast. Since the formation of the first chapter in Cambridge in 1978, The MIT Enterprise Forum has grown to a network of 24 chapters located both in the United States and abroad. Affiliation with MIT is not required to participate. Additional information is available at www.mitforumatlanta.org.

Source: http://atlanta.dbusinessnews.com

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Quest Software Unveils LiteSpeed Engine for Oracle

Quest Software stated that it has provided the SQL Server market with advanced, high-performance backup compression and encryption via LiteSpeed for SQL Server.

Now Quest said it brings this same backup and recovery technology to the Oracle platform with the launch of LiteSpeed Engine for Oracle.

According to Quest, LiteSpeed Engine for Oracle offers database administrators (DBAs) an advanced tool that cuts storage costs, reduces backup and restore times and delivers a solid return-on-investment. Oracle DBAs charged with handling secure backup and recovery strategies on a lean budget can realize 70 to 90 percent compression with LiteSpeed while maintaining complete control over the backup and recovery process.

"Having responsibility for both Oracle and SQL Server in my environment has become much easier and more seamless now that I can use LiteSpeed for backup and recovery on both platforms," said Tom Sager, DBA manager, E.ON US. "Using LiteSpeed Engine for Oracle, we achieved phenomenal results--81 percent reduced storage and vastly increased efficiency in our backup and recovery operations on Oracle."

"SQL Server DBAs have depended on the advanced technology and true benefits of LiteSpeed for years, and our customers have been asking for this capability to be extended to the Oracle market," said Billy Bosworth, vice president and general manager SQL Server, Quest Software. "In these tough economic times, customers want to work with vendors whom they can rely on over the long haul for all their database needs. We're very excited to bring cost savings, efficiency, and dependability to the Oracle backup market."

Source: www.tmcnet.com

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Sheridan Production Enhances Oracle E-Business Suite With Automated Invoice

ReadSoft's Oracle E-Business Suite-certified invoice processing solution has been implemented at Sheridan Production Co., a Houston-based oil and gas production company, to automate accounts payable operations. ReadSoft and partner INSYTE Information Corporation assisted the Sheridan team with the accounts payable enhancements.

With a strategy focused on acquiring mature producing oil and gas properties in the U.S., Sheridan Production faces an ever-increasing number of paper-based invoices. Along with basic invoice information, employees were manually typing in line item information from every incoming invoice into the accounts payable application. In addition, approvals were obtained from various district offices causing the invoice flow to be costly and inefficient. Sheridan turned to ReadSoft to alleviate the manual focus of their accounts payable department and help automate the approval process for operating personnel.

''Having implemented Oracle E-Business Suite at other larger corporations, working with the ReadSoft team has been terrific,'' said Anne Oglesby, Accounts Payable Supervisor at Sheridan Production. ''Not only did ReadSoft's solution simplify a complex business process, but its staff maintained first-rate customer focus during the entire process.''

The ReadSoft solution has been installed with Sheridan's Oracle E-Business Suite system to not only automatically capture information from paper invoices but also to utilize ReadSoft's automated workflow and approval procedures. ReadSoft's solution has achieved the highest possible product certification with Oracle E-Business Suite which gave Sheridan confidence to partner with ReadSoft.

''With Sheridan's expected future growth, we needed to have the infrastructure in place to process invoices as timely and efficiently as possible to help minimize costly manual procedures and maximize efficiency of vendor pay,'' said Tim Blaine, Sheridan Production CFO. ''ReadSoft's solution allows us to better utilize our current staffing with only modest planned increases as we continue to grow.''

''When growing companies like Sheridan Production handle accounts payable inside the Oracle E-Business Suite system, they will experience improved control of cash flow and invoices,'' said Bob Fresneda, President of ReadSoft North America. ''The ReadSoft and INSYTE teams are both pleased that the solution is successfully in production with Sheridan already experiencing the benefits promised.''

About ReadSoft:

ReadSoft is the global leader in the development and sales of a complete product platform for Document Process Automation. With thousands of customers on a global basis, ReadSoft supports customers and partners in North America with offices in 7 locations, including the corporate headquarters in New Orleans, LA.

Established in 1991, ReadSoft was first to bring free form technology for invoice processing to market and first to achieve certifications to enterprise resource planning systems such as SAP and Oracle. ReadSoft has become the global technology leader, with operations in 16 countries and partners in an additional 70. We are proud to have the largest and most innovative development department in the industry, with professional services to assist customers and partners on a global basis. ReadSoft's vision is to free businesses everywhere from manual document handling. For more information please visit www.readsoft.com.

For more information, please contact: Alayne Pregeant Marketing Manager ReadSoft 504.841.0119 alayne.pregeant

Source: www.newspress.com

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Oracle Tuxedo Now Available

* Oracle today unveiled Oracle Tuxedo 10g R3, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware.

* Oracle Tuxedo 10g R3 provides mainframe-class scale and performance on open, distributed systems for software written in C, C++, and COBOL, and is the premier platform for "rehosting" mainframe applications on mainstream hardware.

* Oracle Tuxedo 10g R3 is the latest in a series of product releases that combine technology from Oracle Fusion Middleware and BEA Systems. These products illustrate the rapid progress that Oracle is making in combining market-leading technologies from the two companies into a unified product offering.

* Oracle also announced the availability of Oracle Service Architecture Leveraging Tuxedo (SALT) 10g R3 and Oracle Tuxedo System and Application Monitor (TSAM) 10g R3. The new releases are focused on standardization and improving SOA-enablement.

* Oracle SALT is the SOA-enablement product option for Oracle Tuxedo. Oracle SALT provides a standards-based, easy-to-use, configuration driven, bi-directional Web-services gateway and an SCA container to simplify new application development using standards based programming model while leveraging Oracle Tuxedo infrastructure.

* The new features and capabilities of Oracle Tuxedo 10g R3, Oracle SALT 10g R3 and Oracle TSAM 10g R3 are combined with enhanced integration with the following Oracle Fusion Middleware components: Oracle Coherence, Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Identity and Access Management Suite.

* Oracle Tuxedo 10g R3 is certified with Oracle Clusterware to improve the availability of existing and new applications. Because Oracle Clusterware is a also certified with Oracle Real Application Clusters, integration between Oracle Tuxedo 10g R3 and Oracle Real Application Clusters is significantly enhanced.

Source: www.hardwarezone.com

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SAP wants information about Oracle's deal with partner

SAP wants a federal court to make Oracle hand over records of its business arrangement with CedarCrestone, an Alpharetta, Georgia, systems integrator that provides third-party support for Oracle PeopleSoft applications.

The filing was made on Jan. 16 in U.S. District Court-Northern District of California, in connection with the lawsuit Oracle filed against SAP in March 2007. Oracle charges that SAP's now-shuttered subsidiary TomorrowNow, a provider of third-party support for Oracle's PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and Siebel applications, illegally downloaded material from Oracle's support systems and used it to woo Oracle customers.

SAP has said that TomorrowNow workers were authorized to download materials from Oracle's site on behalf of TomorrowNow customers, but acknowledged some "inappropriate downloads" had occurred. SAP has also said that Oracle's software remained in TomorrowNow's systems and has denied Oracle's allegations of a wider pattern of wrongdoing.

SAP's Jan. 16 filing argues that since "Oracle's partners apparently pay for the right to access Oracle's Software and Support Materials," Oracle's deal with CedarCrestone is "directly relevant" to calculating damages in the suit.

"Moreover, the mere fact that customers have options for support from Oracle partners (rather than obtaining support services directly from Oracle) may prove that customers would have left Oracle to get support elsewhere regardless of the activities of TomorrowNow," the filing adds.

In addition, SAP wants Oracle to provide the terms and conditions by which CedarCrestone can access and use Oracle software and support materials; and "documents sufficient to identify" which Oracle customers CedarCrestone is supporting.

SAP also issued a subpoena to CedarCrestone in November, seeking a range of information on its relationship with Oracle, according to another filing. In a Dec. 8 letter, an attorney for CedarCrestone objected to the subpoena on the grounds it was "overbroad, vague, ambiguous and burdensome," and also requested proprietary and confidential information. The attorney could not immediately be reached for further comment Tuesday.

Oracle and SAP both declined comment Tuesday.

The Jan. 16 filing follows another request by SAP that could bring potentially sensitive information from Oracle into public view. SAP recently asked that Oracle reveal its profit-margin information regarding PeopleSoft and JD Edwards software and support, also saying such information would be relevant to calculating damages.

A settlement conference in the case has been scheduled for Feb. 23, and a trial date is set for February 2010.

Author: Chris Kanaracus @ IDG News Service

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Oracle enters into partnership with Datawatch

Oracle has formed a records-management partnership with enterprise information management firm Datawatch.

It said it has combined its Universal Records Management Adapter with Datawatch's BDS Enterprise Content Management product suite to create a single environment to control records and retention policies for all content stored in the Datawatch BDS archive.

It also provides records managers with a single view into retention schedules, disposition actions and audit histories, facilitates the process of discovering and declaring records, and helps ensure that the enterprise conforms to both regulatory mandates and internal corporate policies.

Oracle said the integration will provide a complete document lifecycle product that will enable users to reduce the cost of storing and managing unstructured content. Oracle said users can also access, manage, and produce data in a legally defensible manner when responding to litigation, antitrust inquiries, regulatory compliance, or investigation.

Harvey Gross, vice president of enterprise product development at Datawatch, said: "Our technology relationship with Oracle enhances the Datawatch BDS Enterprise Content Management product suite and enables a significant cost reduction to our customers for their critical business functions, helps ensure legal and regulatory compliance, and fulfills the need for technology to provide authenticity, access and longevity."

Source: http://contentmanagement.cbronline.com

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Oracle cuts several hundred jobs, sources say

Oracle Corp (ORCL.O), the world's No. 3 software maker, has fired "several hundred" of its more than 86,000 workers, according to two sources close to the situation, as the business software maker struggles in an economic downturn.

Redwood City, California-based Oracle laid off the employees on Friday, trimming its force of sales consultants who advise clients on how to integrate its business management software and database programs into their operations, the sources said on Tuesday.

Oracle declined comment.

The scale of the job cuts is far smaller than some investors had expected. Rumors surfaced last week that the company was preparing to lay off thousands of its workers.

While Oracle joined a growing list of technology industry giants that are cutting workers, the scope of the reductions is smaller than ones planned by peers.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier on Tuesday Oracle has cut around 500 positions.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle @ uk.reuters.com)

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Oracle to issue 41 security patches

Vulnerabilities, of which 15 are severe, are across 'hundreds' of its products. Oracle Corp. will issue 41 security patches next Tuesday addressing vulnerabilities across "hundreds" of its products, the company said in a pre-release announcement.

More than 15 of those patches address flaws that were described by the company as being remotely executable without the need for authentication -- a class of vulnerability to which Oracle usually assigns its highest severity rating. Of these, nine are slated for Oracle Secure Backup, two for its Application Server product and five for its BEA Product Suite.

The company's Critical Patch Update next week will also include fixes for 10 vulnerabilities in its database products. None of these exploits, however, can be taken advantage of remotely without the attacker having access to a username and password first, the company said.

Among the affected products that were listed by Oracle in its pre-announcement were multiple versions of its database going back to Oracle database 9i, its E-business suite products and several versions of Oracle's WebLogic Server and Portal products.

The number of patches being released by Oracle in this round is about the same as the last quarter, when the company issued 36 security fixes.

By Oracle's standards those number are relatively small. There have been occasions when the company has issued considerably more patches in its quarterly updates. Its January 2006 update had 82 patches, while the same year's October update had 101.

As with every release, Oracle is imploring administrators to install the patches as soon as possible. But if history is any indication, a large number of the database patches, at least, are unlikely to be installed in a hurry.

A study of 305 database administrators released in January 2008 by security vendor Sentrigo Inc. found that two-thirds of those surveyed did not install Oracle's security patches at all, no matter how critical the vulnerabilities were.

Most appeared to be reluctant to bring production environments down for any length of time to implement security patches and were also concerned about the possibility of the fixes breaking applications.

Author: Jaikumar Vijayan @ www.computerworld.com

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SAP wants Oracle to reveal software, support profit margins

SAP wants Oracle to reveal profit-margin information for JD Edwards and PeopleSoft software and support, according to a joint discovery statement filed this week in connection with Oracle's lawsuit against SAP.

In quarterly earnings reports, software vendors regularly trumpet statistics such as growth in earnings per share or the increase in revenue for general software categories, such as databases. But it is far from typical for companies to detail their profit margins for specific software product lines.

If such information were in the public domain, it could put Oracle at a disadvantage in negotiating with customers and provide "useful ammo" for its competitors, particularly Salesforce.com, said 451 Group analyst China Martens.

Oracle sued SAP in March 2007 for copyright infringement and other alleged violations, charging that workers at SAP's now-shuttered subsidiary TomorrowNow, a provider of third-party support for Oracle's PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and Siebel applications, had illegally downloaded material from Oracle's support systems and used them to court Oracle customers.

Meanwhile, SAP has said that TomorrowNow staff members were authorized to download materials from Oracle's site on behalf of TomorrowNow customers, but acknowledged that some "inappropriate downloads" had occurred. However, SAP has also said that Oracle's software remained in TomorrowNow's systems and has strongly rejected Oracle's claims of a broader pattern of wrongdoing.

Oracle has said its damages could top US$1 billion, but has not yet provided a specific figure.

SAP, meanwhile, states in the discovery document filed Monday that the information is "relevant to the calculation of Oracle's alleged damages."

"Under the Copyright Act, actual damages represent the injury to the market value of the copyrighted work at the time of infringement. In appropriate circumstances, this amount may be computed by determining the profits that would have accrued to plaintiff but for the infringement," it adds.

However, during discovery Oracle "has taken the position that it is unable to determine its profit margins on the two product lines that are at the center of this case," the filing adds. Oracle has refused to provide financial information to allow SAP to determine or make a "reasonable estimate of" its profits on the product lines, according to the filing. So, SAP wants the court to order Oracle to provide the "financial data necessary to attempt to determine Oracle's actual profit margins for the PeopleSoft and JDE products and support services."

SAP's motion comes some weeks before a settlement conference scheduled for Feb. 23. A judge has ordered both parties to turn in proposals for settlement that include specific dollar figures prior to the conference.

Oracle spokeswoman Deborah Hellinger declined comment on Wednesday.

"This filing speaks for itself and this is a normal part of the discovery process," SAP spokesman Andy Kendzie said of the company's request for the profit margin information.

SAP is not interested in dragging out the suit, he added. "We have always said that we would like this case to be resolved."

Author: Chris Kanaracus, IDG News Service

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'Leap second' snafu affects Oracle clustering tool

Cluster Ready Services software is rebooting in some cases because of second added to 2008. The second that time-tracking scientists added to 2008 to adjust for the slowing of the earth's rotation is causing problems with Oracle Corp.'s Cluster Ready Services (CRS) software, the vendor said in a support document issued Monday. But it added that a pair of fixes are available.

CRS is used in conjunction with Oracle's Real Application Clusters software, which enables a single Oracle database to be deployed on a group of servers, or "nodes," in order to provide fault tolerance and increased scalability.

The "leap second event" is causing CRS nodes to reboot, according to the Oracle document that details the problem. The affected database platforms are Versions 10.1.0.2 to 11.1.0.7 of the Oracle Server Enterprise Edition, running on 64-bit Sun Solaris servers with CRS and Oracle patch sets 10.2.0.1 to 11.1.0.7.

Coordinated Universal Time, the world's time standard, needs to be adjusted in order to account for the differences that develop between UTC and the international atomic clock because of Earth's rotational speed. The addition of leap seconds are handled by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, either at the end of June or December. The IERS, as the organization is known, added a second to Dec. 31.

As a result, Network Time Protocol daemons "had to adjust time accordingly, and the CRS product stack has encountered problems resulting in node reboots," Oracle said in its support document. NTP is used to synchronize the clocks of computers and relies on UTC to provide reference times.

The reboots will occur on affected nodes only under two specific conditions, which were detailed by Oracle. The document also spells out two methods for fixing the issue, including the installation of available patches.

A spokesman for Oracle didn't immediately respond to a request for further comment.

The rebooting issue has prompted some discussions on multiple user forums and mailing lists in recent days.

"This begs the question -- how the heck do timekeepers and politicians get away with last-minute time changes?" one user wrote. "Surely there's some pushback from technology-related interest groups to try and get more than four weeks' warning?"

Other posters, however, pointed out that the IERS made its announcement regarding the plan to add the most recent leap second last July.

Oracle's disclosure follows the problem that cropped up last week with some of Microsoft Corp.'s Zune media players. The affected devices froze up and wouldn't work on Wednesday, a snafu that Microsoft attributed to a bug in their internal clock drivers. The bug became an issue because 2008 was a leap year, Microsoft said.

Author: Chris Kanaracus @ www.computerworld.com

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Oracle India staff now get hour-based pay?

The world's second-largest software products company Oracle is understood to have begun linking the payment of its 20,000-odd employees in India with the productive hours they spend in the company. This has resulted in salary cuts, ranging between 10 and 50 per cent across the board.

Company sources explain that if an employee is a billable resource for 15 days a month, he will be paid in full for that period while for the rest of the period, he is paid a "nominal" amount. Replying to an email query, a company spokesperson in India said: "Oracle does not comment on speculation or rumours."

The company is also understood to have asked all non-billable employees (those on the bench) to get themselves engaged in internal projects, failing which they can explore opportunities outside the company. It is not, however, clear whether the company is asking the non-billable resources to work for outside companies as contract employees while still on Oracle's rolls, or to use their non-productive hours to make money for themselves.

Initially implemented for the employees of Oracle Financial Services Software (formerly i-Flex Solutions), Oracle India has reportedly implemented this across all its centres in India.

Oracle India, however, has not communicated this decision to employees in writing. The team leaders and project managers in different centres have been informed about the decision orally.

"They are telling us that while many companies are laying off employees, Oracle does not want to take such extreme steps. They are saying that once things start improving, we will be back to all the usual compensation and allowances," said a senior employee of Oracle India on condition of anonymity.

Second quarter results announced last month show that Oracle had been able to maintain its profitability despite nearly flat revenue growth. Oracle's net income fell half a per cent to $1.27 billion in the second quarter and sales were up 5.5 per cent to $5.6 billion, lower than analyst estimates. Revenues from new software licences, which is an indicator of future sales, were down 3 per cent to $1.6 billion.

Following its acquisition of i-Flex, sources also note that there were plans to lay off all employees of that company, a decision that was scrapped following intervention of Oracle's management. Oracle feared that the lay-off of all i-Flex employees might suggest the failure of the M&A -- an area that has been mastered by the California-headquartered company over the years.

Sources added that Oracle India has cancelled employee travel costs and withdrawn free snacks and food. Despite news that the company has not stopped recruitments in India, freshers who were given offer letters for annual packages of Rs 2.4 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh earlier are now being asked to consider packages of Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 1.8 lakh.

Author: Bibhu Ranjan Mishra @ www.rediff.com

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Oracle wins ruling on patents

Redwood City-based Oracle Corp. won a judge's ruling Friday that stated it doesn't infringe on two patents held by Parallel Networks LLC, averting a jury trial that was set to start Jan. 12. Oracle in 2006 sued the patents' then-owner, EpicRealm Licensing LP of Richardson, Texas, in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware. Oracle contended it was about to be sued over the inventions for Web-page creation. The patents were assigned to Dallas-based Parallel Networks in 2007, according to court papers. Both companies agreed to dismiss Oracle's claims that the patents were invalid and unenforceable. Oracle had sales of $22.4 billion last year, behind only Microsoft Corp. among software makers.

Source: www.insidebayarea.com

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Alaska Air Taps Oracle To Build Customer Loyalty

The airline implements Siebel loyalty-program software designed to shift the focus away from revenue-draining free miles and more toward personalized service.
The poor economy and high fuel costs created a difficult year for airlines, and Alaska Airlines was no exception. The airline, which primarily serves the West Coast, had to drop flights in recent months and is in the process of trimming its workforce by 10%, including the layoffs of about 1,000 employees.

Alaska Air has improved its fuel usage in recent months and is looking for ways to get additional revenue from customers, including fees charged for its fledgling in-flight Internet service and other à la carte charges. But Alaska also hopes to build and grow on its reputation for high-quality service with several new customer-focused initiatives, some of which are powered by a recently implemented software platform from Oracle called Siebel Loyalty Management.

"What we're trying to do at Alaska Air is accelerate through the economic downturn," said Steve Jarvis, the company's VP of marketing, sales, and customer experience. That acceleration plan includes gaining more market share from competitors.
Although Jarvis calls Alaska Air's airfares "competitive," the airline isn't going to win market share through cutthroat pricing; it's better known for customer service than low-cost fares. In a JD Edwards survey released in June, the airline ranked No. 1 in customer satisfaction among traditional carriers. Alaska knows it must retain and grow its customer base to survive the difficult industry, and it's looking to the new loyalty system as the driver of that effort.

Siebel Loyalty Management replaces the mainframe-based system that ran Alaska's Mileage Plan program, but it's going to do much more than keep track of and dole out customers' earned miles, Jarvis explained. Alaska Air plans to heavily use the system's "triggered events" features, so that it can provide customers with more information and options when service disruptions happen, or offer them promotions based on personal information gleaned from their profiles or travel history. For example, at a future time, this might include offering a promotion tied to an important date, such as a customer's birthday, Jarvis said.

Alaska put the system to its first big test on Dec. 20, when it had to cancel 62 flights because of a surprise snowstorm in Seattle and other weather hazards on the West Coast. The system triggered e-mails to frequent fliers affected by the cancellation that explained what had happened and apologized for the inconvenience. In some cases the system generated free travel awards to inconvenienced customers based on the information it had about them and their specific situations.

"The ability to do more automated and proactive recovery from service failure is a real interest of ours," Jarvis said.

For example, if a customer's flight is canceled, Alaska is looking at better utilizing its airport check-in kiosks to let a customer select her way to a new flight via the airline's Web-based reservation system, rather than stand in a long line at the ticket counter.
"We ought to be able to power our back-end system with tools we now have to make that [service disruption] less stressful," Jarvis said. Alaska currently provides e-mail alerts to customers' handheld devices if there's a change or disruption in their scheduled flights, but it's looking at how it can better personalize those messages to provide each customer with more choices in service based on profile information.

It's been a long and time-intensive journey to implementing the Siebel Loyalty system, however. The company first began talking to Siebel about the system in 2005, shortly after it implemented Siebel Analytics and shortly before Siebel was acquired by Oracle (NSDQ: ORCL). It started the implementation in late 2006 and finished in April 2008, but in the past few months it just finished "stabilizing" the system and will "start to fill out customer profiles on an opt-in basis," Jarvis said. "That was a massive implementation of a very critical transaction system for us." He did not disclose the cost of the software, which runs on an Oracle database.
Jarvis thinks customers will have a much more personalized experience as a result of a system that is less focused on miles redemption and more on an improved traveling experience and promotions specific to a customer's personal interests. A lot of air travelers have become frustrated with trying to redeem earned miles -- with every airline making it more difficult to do so as they try to protect their dwindling revenue -- so airlines need to move beyond the award miles approach.

Said Jarvis: "For our most frequent customers, it's not about the miles, it's about the service we deliver."

Author: Mary Hayes Weier @ www.informationweek.com

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