Oracle prepping broad-based social-networking suite

Oracle is developing an enterprise social-networking suite that employs technologies initially developed for internal use by the Oracle Asia Research and Development Center, according to a pair of official company documents.

The technology, titled Oracle Social Suite, has apparently not been formally announced by Oracle. It combines a wide range of social-networking features, according to an internal case study produced in September.

They range from the basics -- such as a blog system that uses Movable Type as a front end; bookmarking; tagging; and aggregated information feeds -- to more conceptual ideas, like Oracle Social Graph, which provides a visual map of the connections between users and content.

The suite also includes OpenSocial Container, which enables users to plug in applets that meet Google's OpenSocial standard.

An architectural rendering of the suite depicts it as a layer that sits on top of Oracle's database, middleware and search technologies, culminating in a top layer of "social-enabled" enterprise applications.

Oracle has already moved in this direction through its Social CRM (customer relationship management) applications, but the company is apparently hoping to make social technologies more pervasive.

The Social Suite project dates back several years at OARDC, according to the documents.

OARDC is a distributed division, with hundreds of employees working in nine cities and seven countries, across multiple time zones. Growing frustrated with sprawling e-mail volumes, repetitive meetings and high travel expenses, OARDC began adopting social tools, according to the documents.

The effort eventually became a beta project code-named "Shiji." Over time, the technology was pushed out to other Oracle business units, the documents state.

It is not clear when or if the Social Suite will become a commercially available product. Neither document provides a release date, although one states that Oracle is "actively recruiting" proof-of-concept customers in Japan.

Oracle may be wise to test the commercial waters slowly, given the saturation level in the social-networking market. Scores of companies are selling platforms for enterprise and outward-facing use, and not all are making it. An Intel-backed product called SuiteTwo, announced in 2006 to great fanfare, is being phased out.

Oracle's suite may have the most appeal for Oracle-centric shops, since it is built on top of many Oracle products.

Social Suite will also have to find a comfortable role alongside technologies like Beehive, Oracle's secure messaging and collaboration platform.

An Oracle spokeswoman could not immediately provide additional comment.

Author: Chris Kanaracus @ IDG News Service

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SAP, Oracle Fail to Settle Copyright Suit Over Code

SAP AG, the world’s largest maker of business-management software, failed to reach a settlement in Oracle Corp.’s $1 billion copyright lawsuit accusing it of stealing software code.

A two-hour settlement conference yesterday in federal court in San Francisco ended without an agreement, according to a court filing today in the two-year-old lawsuit. Another settlement conference is scheduled for Nov. 30. Settlement talks last year were unsuccessful.

Oracle, based in Redwood City, California, sued SAP in 2007 alleging it stole copyrighted software codes and support documents to bolster a service for customers that use Oracle software and eventually switch them to SAP products. Oracle has said it may seek as much as $1 billion in damages. A trial is scheduled for February 2010.

SAP, based in Walldorf, Germany, said in 2007 that it had made “inappropriate” downloads of Oracle’s support documents. The company denied it had access to Oracle’s intellectual property and said its Byran, Texas-based TomorrowNow unit had a right to make use of Oracle’s Customer Connection Web site and download support materials on behalf of its customers.

SAP said in court filings that it favors a settlement.

Kim Pineda, an Oracle spokeswoman, and Saswato Das, an SAP spokesman, didn’t immediately return voice-mail messages seeking comment.

The case is Oracle Corp. v. SAP AG, 07-01658, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

To contact the reporter on this story: Karen Gullo in San Francisco federal court at kgullo@bloomberg.net.

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NouvEON Hires Former Oracle Director of Sales

NouvEON announced today the appointment of Steve DeSutter as director of sales. He begins with NouvEON on Feb. 23.

DeSutter brings a strong and unique combination of leadership, management and sales capital experience to NouvEON at a time when the firm is experiencing rapid growth. For the past four years, he has served as the director of North America strategic accounts for Oracle Corp. In this role, DeSutter was a member of the executive management team, delivered revenue, software integration development alternatives, and marketing leverage through high-level sales and alliance partnerships. In addition to his leadership role at Oracle, he was responsible for executing complex enterprise deal strategies and coaching executive sales and alliance teams.
In his new role at NouvEON, DeSutter will further position the company to meet future goals.

He will be an integral part of the senior leadership team, and will be responsible for providing leadership in sales, coaching the sales team and standardizing sales processes.

"This was not an easy role to fill," says President and CEO of NouvEON, T.J. Eberle. "Our requirements were tough in a market where outstanding, successful candidates in sales leadership roles seemed to be a needle in a haystack. I am delighted with the choice we made. Steve is an important addition to our team."

DeSutter has more than 27 years of experience in leadership roles within national and global organizations including Apple Inc., Global Logistics Technologies and Enovia Corp. He began his career in 1982 with Apple Inc. While at Apple Inc., he led the company's successful penetration of UNIX into the enterprise telecommunications market. Desutter also has strong international experience. He served as international sales director for Enovia Corp., where he worked across Europe and the U.S. to lead Enovia's sales initiatives. DeSutter has also been a part of several start-ups where he led sales force hiring and development.
"This is a fantastic opportunity to join a high growth consulting company," says DeSutter. "It is my goal to help NouvEON continue rapid growth and expansion."
DeSutter received his undergraduate degree in industrial engineering from the University of South Florida.

About NouvEON
NouvEON is a regional business and technology consulting firm that specializes in managing and delivering high-value solutions to mid-market and Fortune 1000 companies throughout the Southeast. Headquartered in Charlotte, NC, NouvEON represents a "New Era" in consulting services. In this "New Era", NouvEON provides an excellent Cost to Quality ratio by combining its proprietary LIFT™ model (Local accountability, Industry knowledge, Flexible delivery and Technology Business Solutions) with its Employee Owned Network (EON™) of experienced and highly qualified business professionals. The result: NouvEON value-efficient models have resulted in a 100% referenceable client base.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com

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Standard Life picks Oracle for ID and access management

Investement aims to standardise processes and cut costs world wide. Standard Life will implement Oracle Identity and Access Management software to control customer and business partner access to its sites.

The insurance and pensions firm said that using a common platform globally, to regulate access and improve security for those accessing its websites, would also help cut costs and centralise administration around access.

The system will share data with other Standard Life systems including Microsoft Active Directory, Novell e-Directory, Oracle Database and Oracle Internet Directory.

Standard Life has developed a service oriented architecture environment , which the company has said saved £16 million in development costs in three years.

The UK operations will roll out the identity management system after the first installation is completed, in Canada.

Brian Barbour, chief information security officer at the company, said customers had “a right to expect their information to be safeguarded by the companies they choose to do business with.”

Source: Leo King @ Computerworld UK

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Virgin Blue grounds Oracle outsourcing

Virgin Blue has grounded plans to outsource the maintenance of its Oracle e-business systems, chief information officer David Harvey said late yesterday.

After indicating last year it would outsource the management of its Oracle e-business systems, infrastructure and IT help desk, Harvey yesterday told ZDNet.com.au that the Oracle component had been "put on the back burner".

The decision not to outsource that component was a response to new labour market conditions; a year ago it was difficult to retain and recruit Oracle e-Business experts in Brisbane, however that has since changed, said Harvey.

"As it turned out, the employment market has subsequently tightened and we have been fortunate to retain and indeed build on our in-house expertise, which reduced the immediate driver to seek a long-term managed services partner," he said.

News of the decision might have come as a disappointment for Western Australian-based IT services outfit ASG, which early last year trumpeted its nomination as Virgin Blue's preferred partner for Oracle services.

Virgin Blue has, however, forged ahead with its broader outsourcing strategy, following in the footsteps of its competitor Qantas, which outsourced maintenance of key systems to Satyam, Tata Consultancy Services and ASG in 2006.

Global telco Verizon Business inked a three-year deal with Virgin Blue at the end of last year covering the airline's server infrastructure.

"Last week we transitioned a number of servers hosting production systems for our new V Australia airline into Verizon's remote management control," said Harvey. "Over the next month a number of production servers running enterprise systems for the Virgin Blue group will be transitioned to Verizon."

Should the airline decide later to outsource its Oracle systems, Harvey pointed out that Verizon did have capabilities in application management also.

Virgin had also recently struck a deal with Brisbane-based IT services outfit Corpnet, which will see the two share "first level" around-the-clock IT support to all business units, according to Harvey. "This shared partnership is in its early days, but the intention is for VB to increasingly leverage Corpnet's growing scale in the IT help-desk area," he said.

Virgin Blue is also gearing up for a major business transformation project, known internally as Next Gen. A key component of the project will be the replacement of its reservation system. Contracts are expected to be signed in the coming weeks with software vendor Navitair for its New Skies reservation system.

The broader transformation project will be headed up by former general manager of Virgin Blue's ground operations, Andrew Lillyman.

The new reservation system will be different to that selected for the company's recently launched trans-Pacific V Australia service, which inherited the Amadeus system that is used for its short-haul Pacific Blue service.

Harvey said Virgin Blue's recent decision to axe 400 jobs would be unlikely to affect the technology team, which today consisted of around 160 staff — 130 permanent and 30 contractors — down 40 on last year.

"With V Australia going live, and completing that work, we've reduced the number of contractors we have," he said.

"We have been deliberately not been replacing staff over a number of months. In parallel we are cranking up a huge new reservations project and a lot of staff will be working on that for the next 12 months."

Author: Liam Tung @ ZDNet.com.au

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Oracle Financial releases new internet and mobile banking application

Flexcube Direct Banking supports multiple entities that cater to the multi-business needs of financial institutions. Oracle Financial Services Software, a majority owned subsidiary of Oracle, has released version 5.0 of its Flexcube Direct Banking, an internet and mobile banking application.

According to the company, Flexcube Direct Banking caters to a wide range of transactions across corporate, retail as well as investment banking such as funds and wealth services.

Banks that are looking to deliver channel services efficiently and use a channel platform to help integrate heterogeneous host systems infrastructure can use Oracle Flexcube Direct Banking's integration capabilities that are based on industry standards, said Oracle.

From a single physical installation, Oracle Flexcube Direct Banking 5.0 reportedly supports multiple entities that cater to the multi-country, multi-jurisdiction and multi-business needs of financial institutions.

Oracle Flexcube Direct Banking 5.0 enables banks to deliver full transactional services on the mobile phone, including support for browser-based and Java-based application services, said Oracle. With this new release, banks can continue to use Oracle Flexcube Direct Banking's SMS based transactional services.

Manmath Kulkarni, senior vice president and chief architect for retail and internet banking at Oracle Financial Services Software, said: "Oracle Flexcube Direct Banking offers financial institutions the flexibility to deploy and support a uniform customer experience across all service channels including the mobile phone, thereby helping to reduce the infrastructure and operating costs for servicing customers."

Source: http://mobility.cbronline.com

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Solix signs pact with Oracle Financial

Solix Technologies Inc., a US-based provider of enterprise data management solutions with its global development centre in Hyderabad, has signed a global partner agreement with Oracle Financial Services Software Limited.

Under the agreement, Oracle Financial will offer Solix EDMS (enterprise data management solution) as embedded functionality in Oracle FlexCube to help automate archive and purge processes by classifying data, configuring and executing archiving and data migration routines.

“This will help ensure that data remains secure giving Oracle FlexCube customers greater control over enterprise data. Moreover, Oracle FlexCube would be enabled to ensure that data can be restored quickly and accurately as and when required. This coupled with the ability to retain real-time historical data is expected to deliver added value to Oracle FlexCube customers, helping them comply with legal and regulatory requirements,” Solix said in a press release on Wednesday.

Source: http://business-standard.com

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Aircel implements Oracle applications to supprt growth plans

Aircel implements Oracle applications to supprt growth plans. Indian GSM mobile operator Aircel has implemented multiple Oracle applications to support its growth plans.

The Oracle applications, including components of Oracle Communications Service Fulfillment Suite, Siebel CRM, Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Database and Oracle Real Application Clusters, will help Aircel to launch its operations in new markets and provide a platform to offer new services, build better brands and lower operational costs, said Oracle.

Wipro Limited, a member of the Oracle PartnerNetwork and partner for Aircel's IT transformation and maintenance for nine years, completed the implementation for Aircel in less than five months, added Oracle.

Aircel has deployed components of Oracle Communications Service Fulfillment Suite including Oracle Communications Service Activation, an automated platform for activation of complex services in a streamlined manner across multiple technology domains for both wireline and wireless service providers.

Aircel has also implemented Oracle Identity Management, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware that allows Aircel to manage the lifecycle of user identities across its various departments.

Aircel expects the scalable Oracle Identity Management solution to provide a high return on investment with improved security. In addition, the company expects Oracle Identity Management to help it realize significant cost savings by automating provisioning of user accounts, dramatically reducing help desk calls, streamlining compliance audit and reporting, consolidating identity silos and allowing rapid integration with enterprise applications.

Raghav Sahgal, vice president of Oracle Communications, said: "Aircel's selection of Oracle validates our leadership and our commitment to the communications industry in India. By leveraging Oracle solutions, Aircel will be able to deliver next-generation services and content. At the same time, Aircel will be able to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, reduce operating costs, and improve management reporting and control to capitalize on the fast-growing Indian mobile market."

Source: www.datamonitor.com

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Oracle Financial launches two new applications

Oracle Financial Services Software has launched the Reveleus ICAAP Analytics and Reveleus ICAAP Assessments solutions to help financial institutions comply with the ICAAP requirements under Pillar 2 of the Basel II accord.

Addressing all important components of the Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process (ICAAP) including risk assessment, risk monitoring, modeling, stress testing, risk aggregation and allocation as well as regulatory reporting, the solutions are an integral addition to the Enterprise Risk Management offering which includes Oracle Reveleus - Basel II, Market Risk, Operational Risk Economic Capital, Economic Capital Advanced and Asset Liability Management.

To help ensure that financial institutions possess adequate capital to meet current and future regulatory and economic capital requirements, Oracle Reveleus ICAAP provides capital planning capabilities to analyze baseline and stressed scenarios.

With Oracle Reveleus ICAAP Analytics and Oracle Reveleus ICAAP Assessments, institutions can reportedly estimate risk measures such as value-at-risk, conditional value-at-risk and unexpected loss across risk categories and then allocate these risk measures back across various lines of business.
S Ramakrishnan, CEO of Reveleus and Mantas products at Oracle Financial Services Software, said: "Oracle Reveleus ICAAP furthers our industry-leading enterprise risk management offering for financial services and provides institutions with a holistic, enterprise-wide view of risk and capital management while simultaneously helping to achieve mandated regulatory compliance."

Source: http://enterpriseapplications.cbronline.com

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Ex-Oracle director moves to consultancy’s board

A FORMER senior director of the Oracle Corporation is to strengthen the board of leading procurement consultancy Source42.

Charles Courquin joins Source42 as non-executive director, a major boost for the business whose directors also include former Cardiff International Airport managing director Jon Horne and entrepreneur Sir Roger Jones OBE, who is a former chairman of the Welsh Development Agency.

Steve Watts, chief executive of Cwmbran-based Source42, said: “We are extremely pleased that Charles has joined our board of directors. We are structuring the company for serious growth, bringing in the high-calibre management and business skills to support that aim.”

Mr Watts added; “Charles was instrumental in founding our strategic partnership with Oracle and will play a major role in maximising that global relationship. He is a key figure in our plans.”

Mr Courquin gained an honours degree at the University of Oxford in biochemistry as well as being president of the rowing club at St Catherine’s College before joining the Price Waterhouse IT consulting practice.

After a number of years at PwC he moved to Oracle Corporation, where he held a number of key roles, including senior director for general business.

He said: “I believe that every business can benefit from the services provided by Source42 – the impact the organisation can make on the bottom line is one of the best-kept secrets in the Industry.

“Our opportunities are not confined to the UK or Europe; we have the ability to build a brand synonymous with efficiency and value.”

The company has recently announced the creation of more than 30 high-quality consulting jobs.

It has established its procurement services in the corporate market with clients including bmi, Arriva and HBoS, while also achieving benefits for smaller leading firms like Harding Evans of Newport.

Sir Roger said: “Source42 has the capability to deliver double digit percentage savings to the bottom line, making its propositions to reduce supply chain costs extremely compelling in the current downturn. Source42 has excellent potential as a business, its services are very much in demand in both public and private sectors. Charles is a major asset in achieving our global objectives.”

Author: Sion Barry @ www.walesonline.co.uk

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What recession? Oracle support provider quadrupled its customer base

In a year when a lot of other companies floundered, Rimini Street, Inc. -- a services provider for PeopleSoft and other Oracle-owned software products -- picked up 150 new business customers in 2008, four times its 2007 number.

How did Rimini Street pull off that feat? A "significant number" of new customers came to Rimini from Tomorrow Now (TN), a SAP business unit which disbanded last year in the wake of an acrimonious lawsuit with Oracle. But other customers, fed up with Oracle's high software maintenance and upgrade fees, migrated to Rimini directly from Oracle, said David Rowe, Rimini's senior VP of global partnerships and alliances, in an interview this week with Betanews.

Founded in 2005 by ex-TN executive Seth Ravin, Rimini has seen its sales bookings mushroom from $1 million in 2006, to $9 million in 2007, to $86 million in 2008, according to Rowe. Sales bookings for multi-year contracts are counted according to when they get signed.

The year 2009 could shape up into a lucrative one for Rimini Street, too. The third-party services provider is now launching a SAP practice, adding to its existing practices for disaffected users of Oracle's PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, and Siebel CRM, ERP, and sales automation software. Sales bookings for the new SAP practice aren't even included in the company's 2008 numbers, Rowe noted.

SAP originally purchased TN back in 2005, using the business unit to provide customer support for both its own software and products garnered by major rival Oracle Corp. through a string of buyouts.

But in mid-2007, SAP admitted that members of its TN unit had improperly downloaded materials from Oracle's Web site by posing as Oracle customers. By November of that year, SAP announced that several of TN's top executives had resigned, including Andrew Nelson, its CEO and founder.

After trying fruitlessly to sell TN, SAP pulled the plug on the unit in October of 2008, giving TN's remaining customers just two or three months to "find a new home" for software maintenance and support, according to Rowe.

Rimini Street inked some TN customers even in 2007, Rowe said, during an earlier interview. But a lot more came on board in 2008, particularly at the end of the year, the senior vice president told Betanews this week.

In any case, the market is ripe right now for third-party maintenance and support, according to Rowe. With budgets strained from the economic crisis, fewer customers than ever are willing to fork over Oracle's software maintenance fees, which amount to 22% of the cost of software licenses, he said.

Users also tend to be less interested in costly upgrades by Oracle to solutions aimed at providing better integration with Oracle's own brand of applications and middleware.

Many businesses want to maintain their existing investments in Peoplesoft, JD Edwards, and Siebel software and customizations for the next five or even ten years, contended Rowe. "At that point, they might look at SaaS solutions like Workday or NetSuite, once these things are widely deployed and more mature," he conceded.

SAP, too, is now charging maintenance fees of 22%, up from its previous level of 17%, according to Rowe. "But their timing isn't good. It's terrible," he added.

As for its own new SAP practice, Rimini Street isn't targeting customers of the German-based software vendor that are based overseas.

The third-party provider is taking its time, starting out right now with a small group of reference customers. "Customers are giving you their mission-critical systems. You need to make sure you get it right," Betanews was told.

But Rowe claimed that Rimini Street already has a growing waiting list of potential SAP customers. "We have a methodology for building third-party support, and we connect that methodology with specific applications. We're building a support program for SAP now, for full roll-out later this year," he elaborated.

Author: Jacqueline Emigh @ www.betanews.com

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Kapital Bank implements Oracle Flexcube

Optimizes business performance across its network of 88 branches. Azerbaijan-based Kapital Bank has implemented Oracle Flexcube universal banking system to help expand the size and depth of its banking operations across its network of 88 branches.

Oracle Flexcube's process-centric approach has enabled the bank to optimize business performance by using best practices with an ability to define, implement and monitor the effectiveness of its processes. The system has helped provide the bank with an application platform that enables it to conduct its operations in both domestic and international markets.

Oracle Flexcube has also helped the bank enhance its risk management practices through audit trails and limit tracking across customer segments.

Rauf Razayev, chairman of Kapital Bank, said: "We wanted to roll out Oracle Flexcube to help expand the size of our banking operations and completed the project in under 11 months. This solution is a complete banking product suite covering all areas of banking needs and has enabled us to adopt international standards and meet regulatory requirements. Our association with Oracle Financial Services Software, over the past 18 months, has helped us to translate opportunities in the market into tangible results.

Mustafa Moonim, vice president of Europe and Middle East sales at Oracle Financial Services Software, said: "Kapital Bank was our first deployment in the country and we had a tremendous success in the joint engagement with the bank. We are very pleased with the outcome for Kapital Bank. Banks in the region have shown great acceptance of Oracle Flexcube and the success at Kapital Bank has helped provide us with the foundation for this achievement."

Source: http://enterpriseapplications.cbronline.com

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Oracle Acquires Leader in Application Configuration Management

In its first acquisition of 2009, Oracle purchases mValent, a company whose configuration management solutions can promote efficiencies within Oracle Enterprise Manager. Even as it envelops smaller companies, Oracle may also be looking towards a future where cloud computing dominates the enterprise IT scene.

Despite the economic doldrums seizing most of the IT industry, the Oracle acquisition machine is alive and well. The company’s purchase of mValent, a provider of application configuration management solutions, is designed to enhance Oracle Enterprise Manager’s configuration-management capabilities across IT environments.

Announced on Feb. 4, the complete transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2009, according to a statement released by Oracle. As to be expected, financial details were not disclosed.

The move represents Oracle’s first acquisition of 2009. In 2008, they took over 11 companies, including Lodestar and Interlace Systems.

With mValent technology in place, enterprise users should be able to collect and harmonize data from even the most complex of systems. Ensuring consistent configurations across IT environments would also lead to both improved productivity and application uptime.

Oracle Enterprise Manager enhanced with mValent will also simplify systems’ root-cause analysis and automate remediation of issues caused by configuration changes. mValent’s customer base before the acquisition included Direct TV, Blue Cross Blue Shield Michigan, and Kohl’s.

“Effective application configuration management is increasingly important as businesses look to improve operating efficiencies,” Richard Sarwal, senior vice president of Oracle Applications and Systems Management, said in a statement. “This acquisition is consistent with Oracle’s strategy for delivering cost-effective solutions for managing applications that enable customers to adopt new, innovative technology with reduced risk.”

In addition to its focus on enhancing its own product line through acquisition, Oracle has also been casting an eye towards paradigm shifts within enterprise IT. Even as CEO Larry Ellison denounced cloud computing as “gibberish” in Sept. 2008, Oracle has perhaps begun to embrace the model as a means of ensuring future survival.

Author: Nicholas Kolakowski @ www.eweek.com

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Oracle Supports 100 Million Subscribers

Oracle recently completed an extensive performance and scalability benchmark exercise for Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management 7.3.1 that demonstrated its ability to support 100 million subscribers. Scalability of this magnitude is vital to meeting the needs of tier-one communications service providers and those looking to consolidate multiple billing applications into a convergent platform.

· In addition, this week Oracle will propose a series of industry benchmark standards to the TM Forum through its Revenue Management Initiative. These benchmark standards will provide service providers with a consistent way to validate and measure the scalability performance of products marketed to meet the business requirements outlined by TM Forum's Enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM) and Telecoms Application Map (TAM), with particular focus on the billing and revenue management segment.

Benchmark Details

· Conducted at IBM labs in Beaverton, Ore., the benchmark included various workloads such as rating, billing, invoicing and customer service activities using a variety of plans modeled after real-life communications industry business processes.

· The results demonstrated near-linear scalability from 33 million to 66 million, and to 100 million subscribers. At 100 million subscribers the application processed 176 million call-detail records per hour. Further, the test proved that the application can bill all 100 million subscribers in approximately 14 hours – meeting the needs of even the world's largest service providers.

· These results were four times higher than any achieved before and demonstrate the capability of the IBM Power 570 server and the Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management application running on the AIX 6.1 operating system to manage and deliver a real-life workload in a high-end production environment with excellent performance.

· The benchmark tested Oracle's application running on a database cluster of IBM POWER6 processor-based Power 570 servers, with IBM AIX version 6.1 operating system and IBM PowerVM virtualization technology, hosted by an IBM DS8300 storage subsystem.

Source: www.hardwarezone.com

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Louis Vuitton Pacific Series: Pataugas by K-Challenge has tough race with BMW Oracle Racing

Pataugas by K-Challenge was racing today its 3rd match against the American team of BMW Oracle Racing, with Russell Coutts at helm. After a long wait for the team members, racing has finally been able to be launched this afternoon, and all races were completed (start for Pataugas by K-Challenge at 4:40pm).

Unfortunately, the French didn´t get a new point today, which means they will have to race in the “silver fleet” in Round Robin 2, and to finish in the two firsts to reach the quarter finals. This scenario is for sure longer, but all is still possible for the French team.

Gilles Favennec, Pit : “we didn´t look bad in front of them, but we found ourselves on the wrong side of the race course at the start, and then, they end up in front of us at the first mark. They will remain in front of us after that, and even if we come back a bit on the downwind leg, this will not be enough to put pressure on them. It is a big team, but we were consistent, and we are not far from getting there. In fact, I´m quite satisfied about the team because the manoeuvres are better and better, and we manage to organize ourselves together, which is a good thing for the future. The bad point is that we really needed that point to avoid the silver fleet, where there will be four teams. But even if the way is longer, it still exists. We all improved a lot the past three days, even if we don´t see that in our results. We are better in the manoeuvres, in the communications, which is what we needed to work on at the beginning. We are still confident for what is coming up, we have everything in our hands.”

Philippe Mourniac, Navigator: “the important event in today's match is that we wanted the right side of the race course like BMW Oracle Racing. But they made a better job than us in getting it, and we found ourselves on the left. From that moment we were a bit late to come back, and when the first crossing happens, we are four lengths behind, which is not a lot, but enough to make the race easy for the Americans until the end.

If we end up in the two firsts of the silver fleet, everything is possible and clocks will be reset for the quarter finals. We will have three matches in Round Robin 2, we need to win at least two. So we still have our cards in our hands, but the coming days will be a bit less comfortable than if we had entered the gold fleet directly.”

Pataugas by K-Challenge will race tomorrow against Emirates Team New Zealand for its last match in Round Robin 1.

Race details:

Mark 1 : 13 seconds for BMW Oracle Racing
Mark 2 : 27 seconds for BMW Oracle Racing
Mark 3 : 37 seconds for BMW Oracle Racing
Finish : 54 seconds for BMW Oracle Racing

Author: Stephanie Nadin @ www.bymnews.com

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