Oracle Introduces BI Application for iPhone

Oracle is catching up in the area of mobile business intelligence (BI) by riding the coattails of the red-hot iPhone. With Apple's highly anticipated G3 iPhones set to hit stores on Friday, Oracle announced today the release Oracle Business Indicators, an iPhone-native application that will enable executives and managers to access "key metrics and analytical data" from Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE). Oracle also promised transactional ERP and CRM applications that will support decision-making within the context of analytic information.

Oracle's new Business Indicators iPhone app counters smartphone-delivery options introduced last year by Business Objects, Cognos, Microstrategy and Information Builders Inc. (IBI). Business Objects and Microstrategy support the Research in Motion (RIM) BlackBerry platform while Cognos has platform-native apps for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Symbian. IBI's Mobile Favorites supports Web-based delivery to any mobile browser, though it lacks platform-specific API integration.

RIM BlackBerry held a commanding 41 percent of the U.S. smartphone market in Q4 2007, according to research firm Canalys, but iPhone has moved up quickly to grab 28 percent, besting Windows Mobile's 21-percent share. So why start with the iPhone rather than the market-leading BlackBerry platform?

"This is not about not doing RIM so much as it's about seeing the rapid acceptance of the iPhone," says Lenley Hensarling, a group vice president at Oracle. "Even though companies are currently paying for Blackberry, people are buying iPhones, so it's going to be there as a platform. Apple also offered a strong development kit with really good support for Web services."

Oracle Business Indicators uses the serviced-oriented architecture capabilities of OBIEE and Oracle Business Intelligence Web Services to tap into metrics and reports available in the OBIEE catalog, though Hensarling stopped short of promising seamless delivery of existing customized reports.

"This is not intended to be a complete dashboard experience; it's about delivering selected, targeted metrics and reports from the OBIEE catalog," he says.
Access and security controls for Business Indicators users are handled in OBIEE in the same way they are administered for desktop users. The English-language application is available at no charge at the iPhone App Store, and it's supported in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States, Australia and New Zealand.

Oracle hasn't disclosed release dates for its planned ERP and CRM apps, but Hensarling says they'll support two-way interaction rather than the read-only approach of Business Indicators. "An 'Approvals' app will be the next offering, and it will provide in-context analytic information around specific transactions, so executives will be able to confidently approve hires, purchases and expense reports on the go," he explains. "The mobile CRM apps will enable you to manage leads, contacts and accounts, and it will support mobile forecasting."

Oracle is the second BI player to announce iPhone support this week, as open-source vendor Pentaho yesterday announced an iPhone app developed using the iUI project, which is currently hosted on Google Code.

Author: Doug Henschen @ http://news.yahoo.com

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Cobb Energy implements Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing services

Oracle has announced that Cobb Energy, a provider of diversified energy-related and non-energy-related products, has implemented Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing to replace several inflexible and expensive-to-maintain legacy systems. The company is running this application on Oracle database.

With Oracle, Cobb Energy has greatly improved operational efficiency, reducing the time needed to complete nightly batch processes, including uploading meter reads and payments and bill creation, by nearly 80% - from 36 hours to seven hours. Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing allows Cobb Energy to monitor bill accuracy with much less manual effort and train staff efficiently on the application to increase user adoption.

Cobb Energy has experienced a significant reduction in turn-around time for configuration changes - allowing the company to reduce its IT costs and bring its bill design in-house.

Cobb Energy offers the Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing application to other organizations, including Cobb Electric, Gas South and Interlink Controls on a hosted, application-service-provider basis, allowing access to a billing system with less investment in infrastructure and personnel.

Source: www.cbronline.com

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Comstar Implements ERP System Oracle E-Business Suite

COMSTAR – United TeleSystems” JSC (“Comstar” or “the Company”), the leading integrated telecommunications operator in Russia and the CIS, today announced that it has implemented Oracle E-business Suite, the full-scale Enterprise Resource Planning (“ERP”) system from Oracle. The total investment in the project amounted to US$ 12 million.

Comstar commenced the introduction of the ERP system in 2005. The project was implemented in several stages, with Kvazar-Micro (now renamed as SITRONICS Information Technologies) acting as a prime contractor. Over 500 Comstar employees have been trained to work in the new system as users.

Comstar implemented the process automation stage which included contract management, procurement payments and other treasury functions, between 2005 and 2006. The second stage of the project commenced in the Autumn of 2006 and involved the automation of financial, tax and accounting management, legacy IT-systems replacement and the introduction of unified accounting and management data to the centralized Oracle E-business Suite system. The management team was thereby equipped with a powerful tool to control and execute the Company’s operations, based on the best enterprise business process management practices. The system users operate in an integrated information infrastructure which eliminates duplication and provides an end-to-end control at all levels of accounting and reporting. The current implementation includes the following modules of ERP system: Oracle Purchasing, Oracle Account Payables, Oracle Warehouse Management, Oracle Treasury, Oracle Projects, Oracle Fixed Assets, Oracle General Ledger and Oracle Financial Consolidation Hub.

Alexey Goncharuk, First Vice President of Comstar UTS, commented: “The introduction of the ERP system has enabled us to create an integrated information infrastructure and optimize the business processes within the Company. This is of great benefit to Comstar as one of the leading players in the Russian telecommunications market and a public Company listed on the London Stock Exchange.”

Irina Matveeva, Chief Financial Officer of Comstar UTS, added: “The ERP system increases management efficiency and provides greater transparency, both of which should have a positive impact on Comstar’s market capitalization.”

Source: www.businesswire.com

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