BMW Oracle Racing: Defender’s Decision Needed

The Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) today made a renewed call for the America’s Cup Defender to confirm whether it will agree to a mutual consent challenge so that planning for the next regatta can go ahead.

This follows a meeting in New York yesterday where the American club was disappointed that Alinghi representatives were only prepared to discuss a new vision for the Deed of Gift rather than concrete proposals.

Last week Ernesto Bertarelli, Alinghi’s President, issued a public letter on his vision for a new Cup. Larry Ellison, the owner of the American club’s BMW ORACLE racing team, wrote to Bertarelli today asking him to first declare where Alinghi stands on accepting GGYC’s proposal for a conventional America’s Cup in Valencia in 2009.

'We have heard Ernesto’s vision, but what we really need is his decision,' Larry Ellison said.

The club said time is running out. Teams need to plan their campaigns, and GGYC cannot continue to prepare for two different types of racing at the same time.

On December 4, GGYC sent Alinghi a proposal for a conventional regatta in Valencia in 2009 that was supported by many challengers. Alinghi has not responded to this.

Source: www.sail-world.com

Read more ...

Q&A: Oracle's Dave Shaffer talks BPM

Dave Shaffer is Oracle's senior director of product management, BPM, and SOA. He is responsible for business process management and how it aligns with services-oriented architecture as part of the Oracle Fusion Middleware portfolio.

Q. What tend to be the most common drivers for business process management these days - obviously BPM has been around for many years in a number of guises?

A. I think there are a few categories that we commonly see. The first is people looking to eliminate manual tasks and error-prone systems - the automation of human workflow.

The second is about business visibility. The need for people to see the business processes, how they are executing, where there are bottlenecks. They want something they can layer on top of the existing infrastructure, and they look to BPM to expose that.

The third is where companies see their business processes as a key differentiator. Everybody has a set of core business processes but some companies look to apply BPM as a way to increase their revenue. So different people dive in at different points.

Q. One of the challenges in BPM has historically been that it is a technology or discipline that cuts across both the business and the IT department. Does that make it hard to get right?

A. Yes, we have seen that as an inhibitor at times. Sometimes we are selling to the business, which is looking for a more rigorous methodology. Other times you are selling to the IT department and they are often starting with the need for a systems-based approach. That gap means that there can be two sides, and one of our roles is to help the two sides talk to each other.

Q. Communication between the two is key then?

A. Yes absolutely, the two sides need to talk often and clearly explain in terms that each understands what they are trying to achieve and what constraints they are each facing. A lot of projects in this area may be driven by the business initially, and one mistake is to think of the IT side as a detail -- it's a very important detail! Because for the business to realize the benefits they need the IT department to be on board. The good news is that those two groups seem to be getting closer and closer.

Q. How does services-oriented architecture fit with BPM? SOA often seems to be about an approach to IT systems development and maturity, rather than having very much to offer the business in terms that they understand; but equally BPM is often described as a way of putting a business-focused veneer on top of more flexible IT systems.

A. Yes, we have an SOA maturity model that as you say, focuses primarily on the IT aspects of SOA. We think of SOA as an enabler for BPM, but it is definitely not the same as, or a substitute, for a BPM methodology in its own right. So we do also have some documentation that speaks to the BPM methodology itself.

Q. You say that BPM can be initially driven by the business or by IT. Are there any rules of thumb learned from your customer projects as to which approach tends to deliver greater success?

A. In our experience, if you have the business pull it works better, more often. But our advice in either case is to take an evolutionary approach: take bite-sized projects and automate them. Start with small, manual tasks on the IT side.

IT often knows more about the business than the business knows about IT. So IT can certainly propose solutions to business problems. But we see the greatest leap forward when these proposals are welcomed and embraced by the business.

Q. Many will feel that they have made significant investments in their IT systems already: ERP was meant to automate many processes, while business process re-engineering that was once such a hot topic is no longer particularly fashionable as for many companies it led to expensive projects that did not always deliver. Most analysts today espouse modern BPM as putting a new layer of abstraction, if you will, above existing systems. Is that something Oracle buys into?

A. We definitely believe in the "layering above" approach. We think most traditional BPM vendors have not focused enough on this aspect.

Our BPM tools are designed with the expectation that they will work above existing systems. That fits absolutely with our view of what SOA is all about. In fact we think SOA is a key enabler of BPM: you can layer it on top of existing systems and decouple them from the business logic without having to rewrite them just because a system or process has changed. In fact if there is one thing that we believe will accelerate BPM adoption it is the SOA approach itself.

How should you best tackle mainframe modernization? We think the best way is to be able to build new processes around key, clean interfaces that make change less invasive. Those clean interfaces are possible now thanks to SOA and BPM. BPM on SOA gives you an evolution roadmap of IT systems at the back end connected to business processes at the front.

Q. Does this not require some sort of cultural change though?

A. Absolutely, but the role of an in-between agent that straddles IT and the business is already starting to emerge. Titles like business process architect or similar speak to this trend. Even without such roles, there is a clear need for business people who can describe their IT requirements in a more effective way, and IT people who can clearly describe the IT systems implementation as it affects the business.

Q. Historically many BPM pure-plays specialized in the human aspects of BPM -- workflow, while others were better at the system-to-system level. Is that distinction blurring?

A. Yes, we think that has been another inhibitor to BPM. For our customers today there is almost nobody with a pure systems or pure human element, it is always a blend. If you have to change tools to do that, it is not going to work. That's why larger vendors like us were able to jump in and leap-frog the pure-plays: we were able to straddle both camps.

Q. As you mentioned, one of the drivers for BPM is to garner better visibility of the business processes. What gives Oracle a story in that particular space?

A. We have made acquisitions that have enabled us to instrument business processes and feed them out to business activity monitoring [BAM] dashboards. Out of the box you can get that visibility: what are the exceptions, what is the processing time and so on. This can then be shown in real time in BAM dashboards. They can be viewed in a lightweight interface in the browser using technologies that give you a rich-client interface, thanks to AJAX [Asynchronous JavaScript and XML].

Q. As we understand it, that complements rather than replaces more traditional business intelligence capabilities?

A. Yes, at Oracle we also saw a need for more sophisticated BI tools like those which came from the Hyperion acquisition and Oracle BI Enterprise Edition. These tools provide sophisticated analytics and can also integrate with the BPM solution and feed events to data warehouses as well.

Real-time BAM data is great for seeing the state of the business in real-time but there is also typically a very large data set that needs analysis, for example for regulatory filings. Compliance like Sarbanes, Basel II - in fact if you look at those they often almost mandate BPM, because you have to be able to describe in detail your processes.

Q. What about the latest standards that are at work in supporting BPM? BPEL [Business Process Execution Language] is perhaps the most widely adopted, but there are others, aren't there, like BPMN [Business Process Modeling Notation] and XPDL [XML Process Definition Language] that appear on the surface to be competitive. It's all a bit confusing, isn't it?

A. We think any BPM tools should support BPEL. The business stakeholders may not know or care about BPEL but it offers a way for them to own their processes in an independent fashion. It gives them flexibility, future-proofing, and vendor interoperability. No other BPM standard has the backing of so many key vendors as BPEL. However, BPMN is clearly complementary to BPEL and we see the two standards working very well together as BPMN provides a modeling notation for business analysts to use while BPEL provides an execution language for deployable processes.

Author: Jason Stamper @ www.cbronline.com

Read more ...

Partnership is Oracle's goal

Oracle has never been a vendor to let the grass grow under its feet ­ especially with its track record of 40 acquisitions in the past 45 months.

So it was ironic that delegates at its recent Oracle Partner Network day at Arsenal FC’s Emirates Stadium spent a lot of time watching the grass grow. Literally.
The Emirates Stadium pitch, which could be seen from many angles within the conference centre, had been artificially lit with a series of special floodlights to encourage the grass to grow to maintain that lush-green pitch that Gunners fans have come to know and love.

During the event, Oracle revealed it has been investing Premiership-style sums in keeping its global channel running smoothly ­ pumping more than $40m (£19.4m) a year into helping its partners generate business. And it pledged to do more of the same.

Speaking to CRN, Stein Surlien, vice president of EMEA alliances and channels at Oracle, said: “Partnerships are becoming a substantial part of our licensing revenue ­ adding up to 44 per cent of our total licence revenue. It has been growing in double-digit figures for the past five years. Partners are very important to Oracle.”

The Partner day was Oracle’s first official event in London, but its 28th in the past three years. During that time it has met with 24,000 partner representatives in 2,500 one-to-one meetings.

“This way we are getting the right feedback from partners and it allows them to tell us their views,” he said.

Surlien said the vendor is pushing ahead in three core areas: grid computing; middleware including SOA, business intelligence and Java tools; and also in developing “industry leading” applications following its mammoth acquisition spree that included JD Edwards, Siebel, Hyperion and PeopleSoft.

“We are driving consolidation in the industry,” Surlien said. “Our partners are supportive of this because it adds value to their proposition. We are now leaders in the grid computing space and in the top two for middleware. When resellers look for a partner, they know we can help them make money.”

During the event, Oracle unleashed a raft of new tools and offerings for its partner base, including ISV partners and its Oracle Services for Partners (OMS4P) internet portal to help with channel marketing activities (CRN, 26 November).

From a UK perspective, Charles Courquin, director of technology general business at Oracle, said the channel was a vital part of the vendor’s business strategy.

"Our goal is 100 per cent business through partners,” he said. “If you look at enterprise customers and then at the mid-market, there are 1.1 million [mid-market] organisations in the UK. That equates to a $17.6bn spend. We have strength in our technology, and our partners take that and translate it into the business needs of their customers.

“We have aligned the Oracle team here by industry as well as by telemarketing and business development resources. We are starting to see the growth in ISVs and also new resellers coming on board. We have a pool of services they can use. They take the raw material and put an angle on it.”

Surlien added that the vendor is also promoting “co-opetition” ­ a term used to describe a vendor that is competing with another vendor, but also uses them as a close partner to further mutual business.

“Through our acquisitions and because of global forces we will be competing with the likes of SAP, but they are also one of our biggest partners,” he said.

Surlien said the key to a successful channel strategy was in the engagement model.
“Loyalty is about predictability and consistency. We know we can destroy things if we make the wrong move so we need to get it right in terms of predictability, impact and strategy.”

He said the vendor would continue to make acquisitions.

“We buy IP and innovation,” he said. “We invest in the technology and integrate the teams in terms of skills. We look at the people and pick the best for each team once integrated. The first acquisition was a tough battle, but we think we have got it right each time. We will continue driving consolidation as we have always done.”
Partners seemed quite impressed with Oracle’s mantra at the event.

Dave Forest, managing director of Pricipient, said: “We have been working with Oracle for many years, in our case focusing on the manufacturing sector. Over the past four years we have seen a lot of changes, particularly with the Accelerate programme.

“There has been a real emphasis on helping partners. We are about to embark on a go-to-market campaign in the life science area. On the application side there has been a lot of money invested in the tool sets.”

Mark Pulling, managing director of Application Links, said: “We have been working with Oracle for some time. The marketing collateral has helped us to go to market with a powerful brand and helps us evolve our IP in that area too. In terms of the HR market ­ a particularly strong area for us ­ there are a lot of alternatives on the market, but Oracle’s is a scaleable product and the competition is not.”

However, Oracle is keen to shake off its past image with the channel once and for all and Surlien said the firm had learned its lesson about vendor arrogance.

“We are going to work hard to prove to our partners we can help them make money,” he said. “Oracle is a humble company. We know how important our partners are and we realise they have a choice in terms of what vendor to partner with. We want them to stay with us.”

Author: Sara Yirrell @ www.channelweb.co.uk

Read more ...