Latest News from Oracle Developer's Journal

Oracle Fusion Middleware - #1 in Middleware

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:45:00 EDT

As part of today's Oracle(R) Fusion Middleware 11g launch, Oracle announced that Oracle Fusion Middleware remains the Company's fastest growing business. Oracle's commitment to delivering innovative products strengthened Oracle Fusion Middleware's position as an industry leader in vendor share, growth, performance, partner ecosystem and developer communities.

Oracle-Sun: Oracle Issues Statement

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:00:00 EDT

Oracle yesterday evening issued the following statement, attributable to Dan Wall, Latham & Watkins counsel to Oracle.

Oracle Reports Last Quarter Before Sun

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:00:00 EDT

Oracle earnings were down 7% to $1.9 billion, or 38 cents a share, but still above expectations, on revenues down 5% to $6.9 billion in the quarter ended in May. The company blamed the stronger dollar for the dips and reassuringly says its pipeline has been growing faster than reported revenues, particularly in the last 90 days.

Q&A With Grant Ronald

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:45:00 EDT

(This is a reprint of an article published in the UKOUG's Select magazine early this year)

When talking about Oracle Forms and JDeveloper, one Oracle personality stands out among others - long time blogger Grant Ronald from Oracle Corporation UK. Grant has for a long time “pimped” Oracle Forms and its big brother JDeveloper at Oracle events and user groups events around the world. His popularity is shown by his blog receiving on average 2000 hits per day. Lately, to reassure Oracle customers that Oracle intends to keep on supporting Oracle Forms and show that Forms has a future inline with JDeveloper, Grant has been responsible for the Oracle’s Forms Modernization message.

Chris Muir from SAGE Computing Services Australia conducted the following Q&A session with Grant to get the low down and latest on Forms and JDeveloper, as well as a little about Grant himself.

CM: What role do you currently play at Oracle and what does your day job entail?

Grant Ronald: Well, my title says “Group Product Manager” and the products I cover are Oracle Forms and Oracle JDeveloper. As a Product Manager you are responsible for the success of the products in your area. That encompasses everything from working with developers on features, the marketing department on campaigns or delivering presentations at events like Oracle World. In the morning you can be rolling your sleeves up and getting into code with a developer, and in the afternoon you can be meeting with the CTO. It’s that varied.

CM: How did you get into this Oracle gig anyhow? What’s your background at Oracle and computing in general?

Grant Ronald: Back in the early ’80s, home computing was slowly starting to take off with computers like the Sinclair Spectrum, Vic20 and BBC home computers, and it seemed like a new an innovative field to get involved in when I left school. So I got my degree in Computing Science then joined a small IT outfit in the UK that eventually got consumed by EDS. It was a pretty typical development role for about seven years, mainly focused on military applications, and my last job was designing, developing and leading the team for the development of the user interface for a military email system.

This took me up to 1996 when I fancied a change, and Oracle was looking for people with development experience on Unix and Motif in their support organization. So I joined Oracle Support where I eventually headed up the group who supported the local EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) teams in Forms, Reports and Discoverer. Given that I was working closely with the Oracle Product Management team in this role, I was eventually persuaded to make the jump into Oracle Development!

CM: Ok, now for some tough questions worthy of any Q&A: You’re currently known via your blog for discussions on Oracle development including Forms and SOA, and presentations in Oracle Developer Days around the world. Previously you were also known for you work on JDeveloper. Why the change? Has Oracle internally panicked about the impression (my emphasis) customers are getting that Oracle has killed Forms, and now the need for Forms advocates?

Grant Ronald: There has not really been a change. The thing is, we’ve never stopped talking about Forms. I’ve got the air miles and passport stamps to show that we were still presenting Forms at Oracle World, ODTUG (Oracle Development Tools User Group), UKOUG (UK Oracle User Group), DOAG (German Oracle User Group) and dozens of other events covering EMEA, APAC and the Americas.

The Forms OTN page is still a hive of activity: news, events, whitepapers and how-to’s. Maybe people thought we had stopped talking about Forms because we were also talking about other technologies as well. Ten years ago if you developed on an Oracle database then you pretty much used Forms, simple as that. But the world has changed and there are other things to talk about now. Which makes sense, if you think about it; there is more need and more demand to be talking about the “new” stuff, especially when it is evolving at such a rate.

CM: On discussing Forms and considering that some Oracle customers are confused on the future of Forms, can you outline Oracle’s commitment to Forms in terms of existing versions and Oracle Support?

Grant Ronald: I think the strongest statement we have is the fact that we published a statement of direction five years ago and that statement remains true today. We’ve always said that we are committed to Forms and that there have been no plans to desupport it. That line has never changed. Regarding support, we’ve recently just extended the support date for 10.1.2 (the latest release of Oracle Forms) and Forms 11g is in development, having already had positive reviews from our beta testers. So we are lengthening the support dates, we are working on the next release and we are also discussing enhancements and features for post 11g. I think that’s all good news.

CM: Could the problem with Oracle Forms just be an image problem? It’s never been known for sexy development (a’la grey screens of boredom), and especially now that the web world, web rich clients, AJAX etc have taken off.

Grant Ronald: The sweet spot for Oracle Forms has always been the ability to rapidly develop rich, transactional business applications. So you see Oracle Forms applications in your government offices, airlines and bank back-offices etc. The need for visual “bells and whistles” is less at the fore than, for example, an online shopping application where a user makes a snap decision, often based on visual aesthetics, as to whether they will use the site.

But there is nothing to stop you pushing the boundaries of the visual aspects of Oracle Forms. We have customers who are using some of the features of Oracle Forms, like PJCs and Java beans, to really push the boundaries of the Forms UI. Like this story. So there is nothing to stop you modernizing your Forms application, starting with an update of the user interface.

CM: So what plans do Oracle have in addressing Forms customers?

Grant Ronald: We are continuing to present at all the major events and user groups. In addition, we’ve launched a focus page. This includes recorded webcasts on Forms strategy, calling web services from Forms and Forms new features. There are also white papers and customer stories as well. This is also being backed up by a roadshow which to date has hit nearly 20 countries.

For those Forms customers who are taking a step into the Java world, we have a dedicated site on OTN as well as dedicated developers guides, books and Oracle University courses.

CM: Consider an Oracle shop with a large legacy Oracle Forms application that is running well but in a desupported version of Forms. Should they have any intentions of upgrading their Forms installs and what are the risks if they don’t?

Grant Ronald: Our roadmap for Forms customers is “upgrade and integrate”. So the first point to consider is upgrade. There are, of course, benefits of upgrading but you also have to consider the risk of not upgrading: running your business applications on desupported software that is neither security nor bug patched, or being certified on newer OS or database versions. Are you managing the risk that some piece of this stack may change and destabilise your applications (e.g. a forced O/S upgrade), or are you just hoping that this software tower will hold up with no means of support. It’s your call.

Which takes us to the next point: integration. By web deploying your Forms on the application server, you are positioning yourself on a platform on which you can integrate both your legacy applications, and new services and applications.

By following the “upgrade and integrate” roadmap, you can limit the risk to your business applications while still positioning yourself for your long-term strategic goals.

CM: Consider an Oracle shop with a large amount of SQL and PL/SQL programmers who are cognisant in Forms. Which Oracle development technology should they pick for maintenance and extension of the existing system: Forms, Apex or JDeveloper/ADF?

Grant Ronald: The simplest answer is really to pick the technology/tool that suits you best. If you are extending your existing Forms application it may be that you build new business logic in the database that could be shared between Forms, Java and Apex applications. Or you might decide that you really want to exploit the power of Java and so JDeveloper and ADF would be a natural choice. Many customers are closely aligned with Oracle’s business applications and so the Oracle Fusion technology stack may drive the choice of development tool. I try to discourage customers to think in binary terms when choosing tools. The reality is that you will probably have a mix.

CM: You mention that JDeveloper and ADF would be the natural choice for an Oracle developer. Why?

Grant Ronald: As I mentioned earlier, I look after Oracle Forms and Oracle JDeveloper. One reason for this split in roles is to bring my 4GL Forms experiences into JDeveloper and Oracle ADF. When I first joined the JDeveloper team I was amazed how developers were willing to write lines of code for common actions that I set with the click of a checkbox in Forms. Part of my job is to ensure that the kind of rich features a Forms developer takes for granted are implemented in JDeveloper and Oracle ADF.

JDeveloper and Oracle ADF is also a natural choice because it’s the route our own Applications Division is taking. Our next generation Fusion applications are being built using JDeveloper and ADF. So, as the technology choice for Oracle’s own Fusion Applications, the technology is built with the Forms/Database and PL/SQL developers in mind. No other tool or framework can make this claim.

CM: What skills do you see a Forms developer needing in moving to ADF, and what approach do you suggest to a development team in minimising this learning curve?

Grant Ronald: There is a learning curve in moving to any new technology but with JDeveloper and ADF we are really smoothing out that learning curve and lowering the barrier at which you can start to become productive.

Of course, the bottom line is that you will need some Java knowledge, but how much depends on how far you want to get below the covers and customize the behaviour of the framework.

With an overview of ADF and some basic Java language skills, you can go a long way: building business services, validation, page flow, rich UI interaction, LOVs, graphs – stuff that you couldn’t even consider if you weren’t using ADF.

But if you have made a strategic choice to develop on the Java platform, I’d expect you to still have some members of your team who have a more advanced knowledge of the platform so they can make architectural decisions and set up best practices. We are also working on giving you the learning aids to get up to speed. We have developed a number of Oracle University courses specifically targeted at the Forms audience moving to Java. There are a number of books already published and more in the pipeline that are aimed at opening up the platform. And of course, we have a dedicated focus page on OTN and the essential ADF developer guides for 4GL developers.

CM: Recently you’ve been focusing on SOA technology integration with Forms. Why advantages do you see this combination providing? What challenges do Forms programmers face with integration?

Grant Ronald: The benefits of a service based approach are already well documented: loosely coupled, reusable implementations of business processes gives a more flexible, agile architecture that is better aligned to the business.

Much of the work we are doing with Oracle Forms now is to allow your existing Forms application to hook into the SOA world. The ability to call out to web services and for those services to call back asynchronously is one example.

CM: Grabbing your crystal ball, given your long-term experience in development, where do you see Oracle development in 10 years time?

Grant Ronald: I think the clearest view of the future can be seen in Oracle’s own business applications. Oracle’s Applications Division have upgraded to the most recent version of Forms, while looking to exploit the benefits of a services oriented architecture and a standards based platform. Using JDeveloper and Oracle ADF, they are taking developers from a background including Forms, PL/SQL and Peopletools, and making them productive on the Java platform.

I think this gives the clearest indication of where Oracle development is heading and I think there is a great comfort in knowing that the technology choices you are making are the ones Oracle is betting its business applications on as well.

CM: Finally, moving out of the Oracle arena, what keeps you kicking out of work? I know you play in a band.

Grant Ronald: I play a bit of keys in a band, and that mixed with a few weekends out biking helps balance out all the fun I have at Oracle!

Oracle Reportedly Hiring

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 09:15:00 EDT

Oracle is reportedly recruiting executives to replace the ones it expects to leave or get fired when it takes over Sun, which will be integrated into Oracle, not run as a free standing subsidiary.

Cloud Computing Company Appoints Ram Gupta to Board of Directors

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:00:00 EDT

Platform Computing, the leader in grid and cloud computing software, announces the appointment of technology industry veteran Ram Gupta to its board of directors. In this role, Mr. Gupta will be responsible for overseeing Platform's strategy as the company implements its go-to-market initiative for the cloud market.

Book Review: Processing XML Documents with JDeveloper 11g

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 07:30:00 EDT

The thing about book reviews, like movie reviews, is the interpretation by the reviewer is subjective. The trick is for you the review reader to work out does the reviewer have the same tastes and likes as you. If yes that should mean that the book review will be relevant to you potentially giving a recommendation that suits your needs. If no you might miss a really good book or waste a couple of those hard earned squid.

REA Is Where RIA Becomes the Norm

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:00:00 EDT

Do you believe that the day when programmers could focus on one language in their jobs is gone? Thanks to the ever-changing IT landscape and the uncertain financial times, contemporary developers are expected to work with a wide range of platforms, frameworks, languages as essentially “masters of all and specialists in none.”

Now Imagine a Sun Netbook, Larry Does

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:00:00 EDT

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who is soon to own Sun Microsystems, made a cameo appearance at JavaOne Tuesday to reassure the faithful of his continued investment in their pet language. And to those naysayers who figure Oracle's going to dump the hardware side of Sun, guess again. Ellison said he's thinking of building a variety of device because of his upcoming $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun including a Java-based netbook or MID, perhaps a smartphone or two.

Java Persistence on the Grid: Approaches to Integration

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:00:00 EDT

The Java Persistence API (JPA) is the enterprise standard for accessing relational data in Java. JPA provides support for mapping Java objects to a database schema and includes a simple programming API and expressive query language for retrieving mapped entities from a database and writing back changes made to these entities. JPA offers developers productivity gains over writing and maintaining their own mapping code allowing a single API regardless of the platform, application server, or persistence provider implementation.

Oracle on Sun Java, MySQL, OpenOffice, and Linux

Tue, 19 May 2009 12:14:00 EDT

If you are lucky, and curious enough, Oracle can be the best place to learn the enterprise software market. I have worked at Oracle for about seven years and, in my entire career, it is where I have learned the most about enterprise software. When Oracle announced it was buying Sun, [...]

So Oracle Thinks It’s Buying MySQL, Huh

Fri, 15 May 2009 15:30:00 EDT

MySQL refuses to go gentle into Oracle’s uncertain arms. Monty Widenius, principal author of the original version of the open source database and a founder of the MySQL company that Sun bought last year for a billion dollars, is proposing to wrest control of the widgetry from Oracle.

No Such Thing as Too Much Virtualization at Oracle

Fri, 15 May 2009 08:15:00 EDT

Oracle said Wednesday that it’s buying Virtual Iron (VI), the Linux/Xen-based virtualization house that’s probably fourth in the queue after VMware, Microsoft and Citrix and maybe ahead of Red Hat and Novell.

Oracle-Sun: Transaction Uncertainty Is What Led Sun to Oracle Over IBM

Wed, 13 May 2009 08:00:00 EDT

According to the Wall Street Journal this morning, Oracle - rather than IBM - acquired Sun because of "transaction uncertainty" among Sun's board of directors - mainly caused by Big Blue lowering its bid price from $10 to $9.40 per share, and specifying that the deal was contingent on other items and conditions.

Oracle-Sun: Latest 10-Q SEC Filing by Sun Notes "Potential Violations"

Mon, 11 May 2009 14:00:00 EDT

On page 40 of its latest 10-Q filing with the SEC, Sun notes that it may have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The Wall Street Journal, which broke the story, quotes a lawyer who specializes in this sort of thing as saying that potential violations are usually uncovered when companies are doing due diligence ahead of an acquisition. So that suggests that it could have surfaced during IBM’s due diligence. As far as anyone knows, Oracle never did any due diligence on Sun.

Oracle Reportedly Developing Cloud Computing Products

Mon, 11 May 2009 10:30:00 EDT

Oracle is reportedly developing a line of seven new SaaS products to meet the online competition. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, remember, has scoffed at SaaS as unprofitable although he owns a goodly piece of NetSuite. According to the Wall Street Journal, which claims to have read a company document and talked to unidentified sources saying so, the software would include the widgetry to run sales campaigns and keep track of employees and job applicants as well as a product aimed at the insurance industry.

Over 1,200 Resellers Do Business Through Oracle's VAD Remarketer Program

Mon, 11 May 2009 08:01:00 EDT

Demonstrating its ongoing momentum in enabling channel partners to more easily serve the midsize businesses, Oracle today announced that the Oracle VAD Remarketer program has signed more than 50 Remarketer Authorized Value Added Distributors (VAD) globally.

Oracle Unveils Oracle Application Integration Architecture Release 2.4

Tue, 05 May 2009 08:02:00 EDT

Oracle has unveiled Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA) 2.4, delivering new out-of the box Oracle AIA Process Integration Packs (PIPs) for Oracle(R) Transportation Management 6.0 to the Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle's Siebel CRM.

Oracle Previews Oracle Rapid Planning

Mon, 04 May 2009 11:34:00 EDT

Continuing to build on its comprehensive Information-Driven Value Chain strategy, Oracle previewed Oracle Rapid Planning. A new product within the Oracle Value Chain Planning solution, Oracle Rapid Planning will enable customers to gain rapid, predictive and actionable insight into dynamic supply chain planning decisions.

Oracle Hyperion Essbase and Smart View 11 Books Now Available

Mon, 04 May 2009 07:10:00 EDT

interRel Consulting is releasing two new books as part of their #1 selling Hyperion book series, Look Smarter Than You Are With Hyperion Essbase. The first books ever released on the newest Oracle Fusion Edition 11 version, Look Smarter Than You Are with Essbase 11: An Administrator’s Guide and Look Smarter Than You Are With Smart View and Essbase 11: An End User’s Guide will be officially unveiled at the COLLABORATE 09 conference (sponsored by three major Oracle User Groups) in Orlando, Florida held May 3-7. The foreword was written by the distinguished John Kopcke, Oracle Corporation’s (ORCL) Senior Vice President of BI and EPM.

Health Care Compliance with BPM

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 21:00:00 EDT

The health care industry, including hospitals, has the greatest need for sophisticated information systems because of the enormous amount of data it handles and because of its life-and-death responsibilities. Yet the implementation of large-scale and robust-enough IT systems in public health care institutions can be challenging as well as ineffective.

Oracle Makes Software, Sun Builds Computers - Duh

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 05:34:00 EDT

Most times, industry pundits vastly oversimplify the issues technology companies face. But this week's Oracle-Sun megadeal begs for everyone to get their two cents in. Larry Ellison himself said the deal will transform the industry, and he's right. It creates a new IBM overnight, and has no doubt set off raucous conversations throughout Big Blue, HP, Cisco, Microsoft, Dell, and SAP.

It's the End of Sun, Only Oracle Survives: Charles Fitzgerald

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:00:00 EDT

Charles Fitzgerald suspects IBM is going to regret not acquiring Sun, and letting Oracle do so instead. "They regretted giving Microsoft control of the software crown jewels for the PC; they may face similar situation now on the server." Fitzgerald knows whereof he speaks, having been Microsoft's former general manager of platform strategy until early last year.

Virtualization Journal: FCoE’s Role in Data Center Convergence

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EDT

It’s a long-standing goal in enterprise networking to cost-effectively converge all local and storage area network (LAN and SAN) traffic on a single powerful infrastructure via one flexible, reliable, high-performance and low-latency protocol. And the future data center will, indeed, one day rely on some form of converged fabric with server and storage virtualization.

Why Oracle Keeping MySQL Alive Makes Business Sense: Mårten Mickos

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:45:00 EDT

"Having MySQL makes business sense for Oracle," former MySQL's former chief executive, Mårten Mickos, told an interviewer this week as Oracle, through its proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems for $7.4BN, positioned itself to become the next owner of MySQL. Mickos does not agree with industry pundits who say that Larry Ellison will kill MySQL.

IBM Stole the Thunder

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:45:00 EDT

IBM stole the thunder and the impending acquisition of Sun became an imminent and expected event. While hardware overlap existed in the IBM deal, IBM would have provided a much needed home for Sun's software assets. Software giant Oracle lacks a hardware portfolio, so the key Oracle / Sun overlaps are far fewer except for the $1 billion acquisition of MySQL by Sun in 2008. Given Oracle's tendency to be proprietary in its markets, ownership of MySQL by Oracle would be perceived as a great risk in the open source community.

IBM Must Now Compete with Empowered Oracle

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:00:00 EDT

In case you missed it Oracle announced this morning that it will be acquiring Sun Microsystems. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion. This news means the technology landscape is about to radically change and quite possibly, Sun hardware is now dead. The software aspects of the deal actually makes a lot of sense. It certainly seems like a very obvious fit, Oracle is buying Java. Whether Larry Ellison admits it or not, Java is the key to enterprise focused cloud computing. It's the perfect language and format for the fluid movement between existing enterprise data center's and Sun's enterprise focused cloud offering.

Oracle News Coverage Initiated on Ulitzer

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:00:00 EDT

Oracle News Coverage was initiated today on Ulizter with 16,807 original articles, news stories and blog entries. Ulitzer content is grouped in 25 distinct subjects from "Aerospace and Defense" to "Travel and Hospitality." Each subject group offers an unlimited number of topics, and each topic may contain thousands of peer-reviewed feature stories, bylined articles, blog posts, news, reviews, commentary, and unique editorial content authored by top experts in their fields. Ulitzer is designed to replace Wikipedia with Its three-dimensional live content offerings and dynamic topic structure.

Oracle-Sun: $7.4BN Deal Will Close Already This Summer

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 10:15:00 EDT

“We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle’s non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year,” said Oracle's President Safra Catz, after the board of both Oracle and Sun unanimously approved the acquisition of Sun by Oracle for $7.4 billion in a deal anticipated to close this summer, subject to Sun stockholder approval, certain regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. “This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined.

Oracle Buys Sun

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:00:00 EDT

Oracle and Sun Microsystems announced today they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun's cash and debt. "We expect this acquisition to be accretive to Oracle's earnings by at least 15 cents on a non-GAAP basis in the first full year after closing. We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle's non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year. This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined," said Oracle President Safra Catz .

Oracle Wants To Be The Apple Of The Enterprise, But It Just Became IBM

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:00:00 EDT

Larry Ellison has always wanted to be the Steve Jobs of the enterprise. With this morning’s announcement that Oracle will buy Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion, he took a big step towards making Oracle more of a soup-to-nuts provider of enterprise technology. With Sun, he will now be able to build and package together everything from chips and servers to operating systems, Java middleware, databases, and enterprise applications.

The Evolution of Cloud Computing

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 05:00:00 EDT

Software-as-a-Service brings together many of the best characteristics of corporate IT systems and the Internet to form a new method of software delivery that is reliable, flexible and cost effective; however, this model is not without its challenges, particularly with regard to profitability, data center operations, and customer support. Consequently, many software vendors are turning to managed hosting providers to help address their concerns. As competition among software vendors intensifies, SaaS hosting providers are proving to be the key to advancing this software delivery model.

An Ontology for Tactical Cloud Computing

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:00:00 EDT

On Tuesday I was in San Diego at the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) Workshop. SISO is an international organization dedicated to the promotion of modeling and simulation (M&S) interoperability and reuse for the benefit of a broad range of M&S communities. SISO's Conference Committee organizes Simulation Interoperability Workshops (SIWs) in the US and Europe. SISO's Standards Activity Committee develops and supports simulation interoperability standards, both independently and in conjunction with other organizations. SISO is recognized as a Standards Development Organization (SDO) by NATO and as a Standards Sponsor by IEEE.

Oracle to Pay Its First Dividend

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:00:00 EDT

In a completely uncharacteristic and counter-culture move – the recession has slashed a lot of dividends – Oracle is going to pay out its very first dividend. It’s going to pay five cents a share starting in May at the cost of about a billion a year. No, it’s not coming out of Larry’s boat money or his fighter jet fund; Oracle has $8.2 billion sitting in the bank along with debt from its perpetual buying spree.

IBM & Oracle Reported Interested in Satyam

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 10:30:00 EDT

According to the Wall Street blog, The Motley Fool, both IBM and Oracle have been among the flock of 50-odd companies that have responded to the possible sale of Indian consulting/outsourcing biggie Satyam Computer Services, whose founder and subsequently ex-CEO Ramalinga Raju, now in jail, confessed to cooking the books for years a couple of months ago.

Oracle Enterprise Manager Extends Management to Oracle VM Server Virtualization

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:30:00 EST

Oracle announced new management capabilities for Oracle VM through the release of Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Release 5 (10gR5). With the new Oracle VM Management Pack, Oracle Enterprise Manager 10gR5 provides a comprehensive management solution that spans the lifecycle of applications and their virtual infrastructures. The Oracle VM Management Pack helps customers accelerate the adoption of virtualization, enabling them to optimize IT resources, improve hardware utilization, and streamline IT processes.

Oracle Updates User Productivity Kit for Enterprise

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:00:00 EST

The new Oracle User Productivity Kit v3.5 and Oracle User Productivity Kit Professional v6.1 are now available to help organizations retain corporate knowledge and increase end user productivity of all enterprise applications, including non-Oracle applications. Companies rely on the product to help ensure user adoption of enterprise applications and address current workforce conditions – workforce fluctuation, travel restrictions, reduced training budgets, and ROI on enterprise application rollouts or upgrades.

SOA World Expo: Oracle Validates dcLINK Integration into Oracle E-Business Suite 12

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:30:00 EST

The dcLINK 5.0 automated data collection solution from Data Systems International has achieved validated integration with Oracle E-Business Suite 12 through the Oracle Application Integration Architecture for Partners initiative (AIAP). DSI completed the required application and testing procedures to validate the integration of dcLINK 5.0 with Oracle E-Business Suite 12, which uses Oracle BPEL Process Manager. Oracle BPEL Process Manager allows clients to adapt business processes with web services selected from the Oracle web services repository.

Oracle BI Applications Introduce New Capabilities for Public Sector Agencies

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:00:00 EST

Oracle announced the release of Oracle Business Intelligence Applications 7.9.5.1 (Oracle BI Applications), introducing new capabilities that allow public sector agencies with fact-based and timely insight into their operational budgets and funds management. These new capabilities have been incorporated into the Oracle Financial Analytics application.

SenSage to Participate in McAfee Sales Teaming Program

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:45:00 EST

SenSage has announced it has been chosen by McAfee to participate in the new McAfee Sales Teaming Program. This invitation-only program is an expansion of the McAfee Security Innovation Alliance and provides SIA partners with a more proactive and mutually rewarding selling model. Under the program, SenSage, which was named 2008 McAfee Most Innovative Technology Partner, and McAfee will work together to promote the award-winning joint solution. Customers will benefit from reduced costs, increased compliance and a more secure environment. SenSage pioneered the enterprise log management and security information and event management markets and delivers the industry’s most scalable and customizable solutions, built on the industry’s only patented log data storage and analysis platform. The company has further evolved its technology to create advanced event data warehouse software solutions, which are optimized for precise querying and correlation across event data sources to address new emerging use cases for a security data warehouse.

If You Squint, NetSuite Made Money

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 23:15:00 EST

One has to take comfort where one can these days. NetSuite, the Larry Ellison SaaS company competing with Salesforce.com, managed to eke out its first profitable quarter ever, up a penny a share in Q4 if you ignore the write-offs. This development is apparently due to demand from multinationals for its NetSuite OneWorld, introduced last April to take on SAP.

Jitterbit 2.0 Enterprise Integrates with Oracle CRM On Demand

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:15:00 EST

Jitterbit announced advanced features to enhance the compatibility of its open source integration software with Oracle CRM On Demand Release 16. To natively support Oracle's On Demand security model, Jitterbit 2.0 Enterprise now includes support for the Oracle-specific JSessionID authentication method. The company claims that using Jitterbit ensures that Oracle On Demand integration does not require deep technical expertise.

Standby Wizard Disaster-Recovery Tool for Oracle Released

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 07:00:00 EST

Relational Database Consultants has released version 8.1 of the Standby Wizard for Oracle, now compatible with Oracle 11g databases. The Standby Wizard is a GUI-based intelligent disaster-recovery tool that automates the creation, maintenance and fail-over functions of Oracle's standby database paradigm. The Standby Wizard now offers Oracle 11g users a way to build and maintain standby databases. It has a user-friendly GUI interface and runs transparently on Windows, Unix and Linux platforms.

Oracle Financial Services Software Introduces Newest Release of Oracle Reveleus

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 07:00:00 EST

Oracle Financial Services Software has announced the availability of a new version of Oracle Reveleus Market Risk. Oracle Reveleus Market Risk provides new and expanded modeling, analysis and reporting capabilities that help financial institutions effectively view and manage the balance between risk and returns, as well as comply with increasing regulatory and reporting requirements across multiple jurisdictions. Oracle Reveleus Market Risk provides a view of risks and returns using multiple measures such as Value-at-Risk, Conditional Value-at-Risk and Component VaR across a wide range of financial instruments, including elaborate derivatives. The solution

Oracle Broadens Database Auditing and Monitoring Capabilities

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 06:00:00 EST

To assist organizations seeking to further mitigate security risks, satisfy compliance regulations, and protect their enterprise databases, Oracle Audit Vault has introduced support for collecting audit data from IBM DB2 for Linux, UNIX, Windows and Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise database servers. Oracle Audit Vault offers organizations a centralized auditing and activity monitoring solution for their Oracle and third party databases.

Quest Software Introduces LiteSpeed Engine for Oracle Backup and Recovery

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:30:00 EST

Quest Software has announced the launch of their backup and recovery technology for the Oracle platform, LiteSpeed Engine for Oracle. Oracle database administrators (DBAs) charged with handling secure backup and recovery strategies on a lean budget can reportedly realize 70 to 90 percent compression with LiteSpeed while maintaining control over the backup and recovery process. LiteSpeed Engine for Oracle is tailored to the needs of Oracle and cross-platform DBAs, integrating into Oracle’s Recovery Manager (RMAN) and export backup strategies.

Cigital and Coverity Announce Partnership

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:09:10 EST

Coverity has announced a partnership with Cigital that will aim to help software development teams improve the quality and security of their applications. The goal of the alliance is to help enterprises deliver complex software by finding and fixing critical software defects and security vulnerabilities in C, C++, C# and Java code throughout the software development lifecycle. With this partnership, companies will be able to take advantage of Cigital and Coverity's integration capabilities. Cigital will use Coverity's technology that allows development teams to deliver code and speed time-to-market for critical software systems. Cigital will enable customers who have purchased Coverity's products to customize and use advanced application of the solution, while enabling enterprises to move towards a secure software development lifecycle model. Additionally, customers can take advantage of Cigital's consulting expertise in software portfolio and application reviews, enterprise security benchmarking and secure SDLC implementation, portfolio risk analysis, and software security training. As a result of this alliance, customers can protect corporate assets and prevent potential catastrophic data loss by improving software security and quality in application development.

Human Capital Management Technology Failing to Capitalize on Promises

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 06:00:00 EST

Finding the right technology solution for human capital management (HCM) is a daunting – and frustrating – task for most companies, according to a recent i4cp study conducted as part of i4cp’s Technology Commons research. The study found that over a third of responding companies are either very or somewhat dissatisfied with their current HCM technology solution. This is in contrast to a little over 6% who reported they were “very satisfied.” Part of the issue could be how much customization occurs with HCM technology across the board. A whopping two-thirds of respondents reported they have customized the software – whether it was purchased or leased – versus a mere 13.7% who used the software “as is.”

Currency Plays Havoc with Oracle’s Numbers

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 07:25:00 EST

The strengthening dollar played havoc with Oracle’s fiscal second quarter, which spanned the ugly months of September through November when the recession took hold. Oracle said that if the dollar hadn’t strengthened GAPP earnings would have been up 11%, software revenues would have been up 14%, new licenses and service both up 5%, updates and product support up 20% and operating income up 20%.

Cloud Computing Expo: Did You See Cassatt?

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:15:00 EST

Cassatt, the company started by BEA founder Bill Coleman, is redirecting its data center widgetry into creating internal clouds comparable to Amazon or Google out of infrastructure customers already have in-house. Coleman observed that most IT professionals aren’t comfortable outsourcing the mission-critical parts of their sensitive internal applications to an external cloud provider.