Oracle, SAP Case Delayed Again

Oracle's suit against SAP alleging "corporate theft on a grand scale" is off to a bad start – before it even officially begins.

The suit, which has already seen one delay in the initial but crucial case management conference meeting, has been delayed yet again.

A statement released by SAP on its lawsuit Web site Sept. 11—the rescheduled date of the first joint conference, which was scheduled for Sept. 4—confirmed that "due to the unavailability of council" the meeting is postponed to Sept. 25.

The case management conference is the portion of a legal proceeding that enables both parties in a suit to briefly summarize their argument and make requests for how they would like to see the case proceed. In a joint Case Management statement filed with the court Aug. 28, SAP and Oracle requested vastly different procedures.

SAP, who is accused of illegally downloading Oracle support material through its TomorrowNow subsidiary that provides third-party support for Oracle applications, requested that the judge mandate an ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution), which typically boils down to mediation between the two parties—and negates the need for a trial.

Oracle is requesting an 18-month discovery period followed by a 2009 jury trial.

Following the case management conference, the judge typically issues an order with his or her decision on matters such as trial date, ADR and discovery schedule, according to a statement released by SAP. The judge's ruling in the Sept. 25 case management conference—assuming it occurs then—could be an indication of which way this trial will go.

Should the judge rule in SAP's favor for mediation, the case might be dead in the water as far as Oracle's claims of massive corporate theft go. If, on the other hand, the judge rules to allow Oracle's requested 18-month discovery process, then it could very likely be an indication that there's substance to Oracle's claim.

It could also be an indication that the Department of Justice has found something in its separate investigation of Oracle's claims against SAP.

Oracle initially filed suit against SAP in March claiming that SAP, through TomorrowNow, unlawfully downloaded thousands of Oracle support documents. In June, it amended the suit to include copyright infringement and breach of contract claims that included allegations of illegal hacking on SAP's part.

In July SAP's CEO Henning Kagermann admitted that some employees at TomorrowNow had downloaded more support documentation than they were authorized for, but said that neither he nor others at SAP had knowledge of any wrong doing, or ever saw TomorrowNow's documentation.

Oracle's case against SAP will be heard by the Honorable Martin J. Jenkins, a judge with the United States District Court, Northern District of California, San Francisco Division.

Author: Renee Boucher Ferguson @ eWeek.com

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Solution Beacon and Oracle Team to Deliver a Highly Differentiated Solution for the Advertising Industry

Solution Beacon Will Create State-of-the-Art Technology Solution that will Optimize Business Processes, Reduce Costs and Enhance Profit Margins for the Advertising Industry.

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., Sept. 10 - Solution Beacon, a Certified Advantage Partner in the Oracle PartnerNetwork, and Oracle today announced that Solution Beacon will provide an enhanced advertising industry-specific solution that will integrate to Oracle(R) Media and Entertainment solutions. Solution Beacon will develop this solution through its subsidiary, Sage View Enterprises, Inc. It will include customized front-end modules focused specifically on advertising industry requirements that will integrate to Oracle(R) E-Business Suite.

The software solution will provide state-of-the-art technology to estimate, manage and control all processes and costs of advertising and marketing campaigns, so that clients will maximize the use of time, efforts and people in order to enable results with the greatest possible profit.
The solution's main focus is on the integration of budgeting, scheduling and actuals to provide Account Managing Directors and Agency Executives with real-time information they need to effectively manage advertising campaigns and take corrective action to increase profitability.
The solution will use business intelligence and a powerful research engine to improve the analysis of the client's products, competition, target demographic audience, media spend, ratings, buying trends and market conditions.

"The advertising industry continues to be challenged in its management of advertising and marketing campaigns that include many dynamic activities, creative teams across disparate geographies and collaboration across campaign agencies," said David Murphy, previously EVP for Young and Rubicam. "Automation of this process and real-time performance monitoring
will have a positive impact on profit margins and the quality of operations."

"Isolated, stand-alone legacy systems are pervasive throughout the advertising industry. Managing a highly collaborative creative process with operational data in silos decreases an executive's ability to monitor and improve performance," said Steve Bamberger, Vice President, Media and Entertainment, Oracle Industries Business Unit. "This targeted solution will establish best practices across the industry, provide dashboard reporting in a format conducive to the industry's business processes and help executives proactively improve profit margins."

"Solution Beacon is pleased to continue its commitment to customers within and beyond the Oracle user community to enhance enterprise system effectiveness to support strategic business goals," said Craig Hobson, President of Solution Beacon.

Advertising industry customers can leverage this innovative solution combined with Oracle's enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications, market-leading database technology, market-leading CRM, business intelligence tools and open standards-based architecture to manage and improve performance for their entire business. In addition, Oracle's integrated end-to-end solution set enables organizations to extend workflow to customers, suppliers and human resources management to streamline business processes and improve service delivery.

About Solution Beacon

Solution Beacon, LLC is a woman-owned business and leading provider of expert-level resources for the most widely used Enterprise Management Systems and Technologies in the world. Solution Beacon is one of three "5 Star" OAUG partners in the world. Solution Beacon consultant resources contribute their Oracle Applications expertise to advertising, government,
manufacturing, distribution, entertainment, telecommunications, healthcare, higher education and finance segments of the marketplace. http://www.solutionbeacon.com

Source: www.prnewswire.com

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Oracle software implementation helps police deal with enquiries

A software implementation from Oracle has helped Dubai Police significantly speed up its operations, a senior official from the force said today.

Speaking a press conference at the GITEX Technology Week trade show, Colonel Ahmed Hamdan Bin Dalmook, manager e-services department, Dubai Police, told attendees that Dubai Police's deployment of an electronic messaging system from Oracle had enabled it to substantially improve its response times, operational performance and efficiency of transactions.

The software giant built a robust foundation to automate and streamline Dubai Police's messaging processes using its Oracle Database software.

The system, which is now used by more than 5000 people in Dubai Police, replaced the previous manual transmission of documents between departments and external entities.

The Oracle solution enabled correspondence and documents to be organized and available on demand as searchable content, with the integration of e-mail and fax resulting in faster response times and more efficient operations.

"In line with Dubai Government's e-government initiative, Dubai Police had a strategic need to migrate toward an enterprise-level IT infrastructure to enhance productivity and streamline operations," said Hamdan Bin Dalmook.

"We wanted to organize and automate our daily correspondence, and align our business processes between departments," he added.

"Oracle has developed a superior and secure database offering which is ideal for government organizations and addressed our critical requirements around data privacy and protection, regulatory compliance and data consolidation," he went on to say.

Oracle also supplied Dubai Police with a unified architecture and repository for managing internal and external documents and files.

Dubai Police was the first government department in the region to implement the units from Oracle, Bin Dalmook added.

Author: Michele Howe

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