Oracle Announces New Oracle Exastack Program for ISV Partners

Oracle Exastack Program Enables ISV Partners to Leverage a Scalable, Integrated Infrastructure to Deliver their Applications Tuned and Optimized for High-Performance
Redwood Shores, CA – June 28, 2011

News Facts

Enabling Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and other members of Oracle Partner Network (OPN) to rapidly build and deliver faster, more reliable applications to end customers, Oracle today introduced Oracle Exastack Ready, available now, and Oracle Exastack Optimized, available in fall 2011 through OPN.

The Oracle Exastack Program focuses on helping ISVs run their solutions on Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud - integrated systems in which the software and hardware are engineered to work together. These products provide partners with a lower cost and high performance infrastructure for database and application workloads across on-premise and cloud based environments. Leveraging the new Oracle Exastack Program in which applications can qualify as Oracle Exastack Ready or Oracle Exastack Optimized, partners can use available OPN resources to optimize their applications to run faster and more reliably – providing increased performance to their end users.

By deploying their applications on Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, ISVs can reduce the cost, time and support complexities typically associated with building and maintaining a disparate application infrastructure - enabling them to focus more on their core competencies, accelerating innovation and delivering superior value to customers.

After qualifying their applications as Oracle Exastack Ready, partners can note to customers that their applications run on and support Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud component products including Oracle Solaris, Oracle Linux, Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic Server. Customers can be confident when choosing a partner’s Oracle Exastack Optimized application, knowing it has been tuned by the OPN member on Oracle Exadata Database Machine or Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud with a goal of delivering optimum speed, scalability and reliability.

Partners participating in the Oracle Exastack Program can also leverage their Oracle Exastack Ready and Oracle Exastack Optimized applications to advance to Platinum or Diamond level in OPN.

Oracle Exastack Programs Provide ISVs a Reliable, High-Performance Application Infrastructure

With the Oracle Exastack Program ISVs have several options to qualify and tune their applications with Oracle Exastack, including:

Oracle Exastack Ready: Oracle Exastack Ready provides qualifying partners with specific branding and promotional benefits based on their adoption of Oracle products. If a partner application supports the latest major release of one of these products, the partner may use the corresponding logo with their product marketing materials: Oracle Solaris Ready, Oracle Linux Ready, Oracle Database Ready, and Oracle WebLogic Ready. Oracle Exastack Ready is available to OPN members at the Gold level or above. Additionally, OPN members participating in the program can leverage their Oracle Exastack Ready applications toward advancement to the Platinum or Diamond levels in the OPN Specialized program and toward achieving Oracle Exastack Optimized status.

Oracle Exastack Optimized: When available, for OPN members at the Gold level or above, Oracle Exastack Optimized will provide direct access to Oracle technical resources and dedicated Oracle Exastack lab environments so OPN members can test and tune their applications to deliver optimal performance and scalability on Oracle Exadata Database Machine or Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. Oracle Exastack Optimized will provide OPN members with specific branding and promotional benefits including the use of the Oracle Exastack Optimized logo. OPN members participating in the program will also be able to leverage their Oracle Exastack Optimized applications toward advancement to Platinum or Diamond level in the OPN Specialized program.

Oracle Exastack Labs and ISV Enablement: Dedicated Oracle Exastack lab environments and related technical enablement resources (including Guided Learning Paths and Boot Camps) will be available through OPN for OPN members to further their knowledge of Oracle Exastack offerings, and qualify their applications for Oracle Exastack Optimized or Oracle Exastack Ready. Oracle Exastack labs will be available to qualifying OPN members at the Gold level or above.

Partners are eligible to participate in the Oracle Exastack Ready program immediately, which will help them meet the requirements to attain Oracle Exastack Optimized status in the future. Guidelines for Oracle Exastack Optimized, as well as Oracle Exastack Labs will be available in fall 2011.

Supporting Quotes

“In order to effectively differentiate their software applications in the marketplace, ISVs need to rapidly deliver new capabilities and performance improvements,” said Judson Althoff, Oracle senior vice president of Worldwide Alliances and Channels and Embedded Sales. “With Oracle Exastack, ISVs have the ability to optimize and deploy their applications with a complete, integrated and cloud-ready infrastructure that will help them accelerate innovation, unlock new features and functionality, and deliver superior value to customers.”

“We view performance as absolutely critical and a key differentiator,” said Tom Stock, SVP of Product Management, GoldenSource. “As a leading provider of enterprise data management solutions for securities and investment management firms, with Oracle Exadata Database Machine, we see an opportunity to notably improve data processing performance - providing high ‘quality golden copy’ data in a reduced timeframe. Achieving Oracle Exastack Optimized status will be a stamp of approval that our solution will provide the performance and scalability that our customers demand.”

“As a leading provider of Revenue Intelligence solutions for telecommunications, media and entertainment service providers, our customers continually demand more readily accessible, enriched and pre-analyzed information to minimize their financial risks and maximize their margins,” said Alon Aginsky, President and CEO of cVidya Networks. “Oracle Exastack enables our solutions to deliver the power, infrastructure, and innovation required to transform our customers’ business operations and stay ahead of the game.”

Supporting Resources
Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN)
Oracle Exastack
Oracle Exastack Datasheet
Judson Althoff blog
Connect with the Oracle Partner community at OPN on Facebook, OPN on LinkedIn, OPN on YouTube, or OPN on Twitter

About Oracle PartnerNetwork

Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized is the latest version of Oracle's partner program that provides partners with tools to better develop, sell and implement Oracle solutions. OPN Specialized offers resources to train and support specialized knowledge of Oracle products and solutions and has evolved to recognize Oracle’s growing product portfolio, partner base and business opportunity. Key to the latest enhancements to OPN is the ability for partners to differentiate through Specializations. Specializations are achieved through competency development, business results, expertise and proven success. To find out more visit http://www.oracle.com/partners.

About Oracle

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world's most complete, open, and integrated business software and hardware systems company. For more information about Oracle, please visit our Web site athttp://www.oracle.com.

Trademarks

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Oracle Health Sciences Delivers Oracle® Argus Safety from the Cloud

Oracle Health Sciences today announced the availability of Oracle® Argus Safety On Demand, a cloud-based version of Oracle’s industry-leading integrated global adverse events management and regulatory reporting solution.

Oracle Argus Safety On Demand provides an advanced and comprehensive adverse events management system that helps life sciences companies enable regulatory compliance, drive product stewardship, and integrate safety and risk management.

“Oracle Argus Safety On Demand enables health sciences organizations to accelerate deployment and time to value for the industry’s leading adverse event reporting and management software,” said Neil de Crescenzo, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Health Sciences. “Oracle Argus Safety, as delivered via the Oracle Health Sciences Cloud, provides new levels of agility in deploying, managing and scaling the comprehensive solution – all backed by Oracle’s unmatched technical and industry expertise.”

As a cloud application, Oracle Argus Safety On Demand enables health sciences organizations and their contract resource organization (CRO) partners to accelerate deployment, obtain on-demand scalability, reduce IT management resource requirements and gain a more predictable IT spending pattern.

Oracle Argus Safety On Demand is part of a comprehensive portfolio of Oracle Health Sciences Cloud Applications and is powered by the Oracle Health Sciences Cloud.

Supporting Resources

• Oracle in Health Sciences
• Follow Oracle Health Sciences on Twitter
• Join the Oracle Health Sciences Community on Facebook
• White Paper:  Oracle Health Sciences Cloud

About Oracle

Oracle is the world’s most complete, open, and integrated business software and hardware systems company. For more information about Oracle, please visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com.

Trademarks

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

CHAIRMAN PTA FOR LOCAL LANGUAGE CONTENT ON INTERNET

.PK Registry PKNIC in collaboration with online Urdu literature website U4U.COM organized a conference on “Local Language Content Stimulus” at Lahore. Chairman Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) Dr. Mohammed Yaseen was the chief guest of the event. Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) was co-sponsor of this event.

Speaking at the occasion, Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen said that Pakistan has emerged as one of the leading markets in telecommunications especially in the voice segment. However, the key towards further development of the sector remains with the availability of local content and applications. Organizing such events is surely an important step for identifying the requirement of the subject issue. He said that our market players may not neglect an important point that the future technological platforms will only be needed if we have future content / services available to the people. There is a huge potential for local content and applications for education, health, governance and banking.

Chairman PTA also emphasized on need for development of local language social networking platforms, search engines and entertainment platforms on the basis of popular internet usage trends in Pakistan. He said that users are surfing and seeking information on internet. There stands no reason for not encouraging local language content. We have some very good examples of China, Japan and Korea with respect to availability of local language content and applications on internet.

Mr. Ashar Nisar, Chairman of PKNIC said that the purpose of this event is to bridge the gap between the producers, facilitators and other stakeholders for local language content ecosystem. “This is a continuing effort of likeminded companies in the local industry to recognize the importance and growth potential of local language content on computer and mobiles”. He further added.

Chairman PTA appreciated the efforts of PKNIC for organizing the event and inviting associated stakeholders to discuss this important subject towards the future of digital society in the country.

Oracle Insurance Announces Availability of Oracle Insurance Policy Administration 9.4

New Version Expands Localization Options for Global and Regional Insurers, and Includes New Features that Facilitate Compliance and Reduce Risk.

News Facts

Oracle Insurance today announced the availability of Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity 9.4, the newest version of its rules-based policy administration system for life, health and annuity insurers. This release includes expanded multi-language, unit-linked product and fund processing capabilities that enable regional and global insurers to rapidly configure and deliver localized products and provide better service for end users with a single, adaptive policy administration solution.

To further support insurers in the growing Japanese market, Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity 9.4 includes Kanji/Kana language support and pre-defined content, as well as imperial date processing..For the broader global market, Version 9.4 includes new localization flexibility for configuring and managing international mailing addresses as well as regional variations for client information.The solution now enables insurers to calculate unit-linked pricing and valuation, in addition to market-based processing and pre-configured unit linked content – enabling insurers operating in international markets to rapidly configure unit-linked products and ensure accurate fund pricing and valuations for their customers. Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity 9.4 includes new features that facilitate compliance and reduce insurer risk, such as expanded role-based security and masking capability to further protect sensitive customer data.The solution can be configured to restrict processing of specified activities based on time of day and user role, reducing exposure to market timing risks.This newest version enables insurers to eliminate duplicate records of clients, helping to reduce underwriting risks and providing a single view of the client for improved service.

Supporting Quotes

“Despite the turmoil in financial services generally, and among life, health and annuity insurers in particular, there is still keen interest in renewing and/or replacing policy administration systems,” said Craig Weber, senior vice president, Insurance, Celent. “The ability to leverage a single, rules-driven policy administration system for multiple global operation centers can help insurers realize significant improvements in speed to market, customer service, compliance with regional regulations, and consolidation efforts. We believe such initiatives are necessary to help the industry address service and distribution imperatives.”

“Today’s global insurers require the ability to provide higher levels of service and quickly bring to market innovative products that stand out from the competition, and also stay current with local legislation. To succeed, they require agile and flexible systems that enable them to meet the unique localization requirements of the markets in which they operate, whether in North America, Asia Pacific or the Pan-European Region. Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity 9.4 meets this need with expanded international market capabilities that enable insurers to reduce risk and profitably compete wherever their business takes them,” said Kevin Walma, vice president, Insurance Products, Oracle Insurance.

Supporting Resources

Oracle Insureance on Face book
Oracle Insureance on Twitter
Oracle Insureance on Linkedin
Oracle Insureance on Youtube
Oracle Insureance on Blog

About Oracle

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world’s most complete, open, and integrated business software and hardware systems company. For more information about Oracle, please visit our Web site athttp://www.oracle.com.

Trademark

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Oracle Announces Third Annual Kickoff Event for Oracle PartnerNetwork Members Around the Globe

Live, Virtual Event Offers Partners Strategic Insights on How to Grow and Profit through the Oracle PartnerNetwork Program in Fiscal Year 2012

Redwood Shores, CA – June 6, 2011

News Facts

·         Further enabling its valued global partner community to learn, grow and profit, Oracle today announced it will host its third annual Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) global kickoff event on June 28, 2011.

·         The live, virtual session will provide partners with specific sales strategies, messages and opportunities that will enable them to successfully plan and engage in the OPN program for Oracle fiscal year 2012.

·         Oracle President, Mark Hurd and other top Oracle product development executives from around the globe, will discuss Oracle’s strategic product focus areas for fiscal year 2012 and how partners can utilize Oracle’s extensive applications-to-disk product portfolio, including Oracle Exadata and Oracle Exalogic, to expand customer opportunities and business growth.

·         Registration is open for OPN Partners at http://bit.ly/lm1WPU

·         Hosted by Judson Althoff, Oracle Senior Vice President of Worldwide Alliances and Channels and Embedded Sales, and top regional Oracle Alliances and Channels executives, the event will give partners deeper insight into Oracle’s vision and plans for the upcoming year, as well as deliver:

o    Information on how to increase revenue opportunities through service offerings;

o    Program updates to help ISVs and OEMs grow their businesses; and

o    Strategies on how to leverage Oracle technology to differentiate themselves from the competition.

·         During the event, Oracle will also share how partners can tap OPN’s expansive Enablement 2.0 and Knowledge Zone resources and more than 60 specialization options to enhance their business offerings and revenues. To date, more than 2,000 partners have achieved a specialized status through the Oracle PartnerNetwork Specialized program.

Kickoff Provides Worldwide Partners Insight and Knowledge for Success in FY12

·         The interactive, virtual event will feature customized content for each region and a live Q&A session, allowing partners to use online and social media resources to provide real-time feedback and ask questions throughout the event.

·         Regional events will take place in:

o   EMEA Kick-Off - Tuesday, June 28 at 6:00 am PDT / 2:00 pm BST

o   LAD Kick-Off - Tuesday, June 28 at 8:00 am PDT / 12:00 pm DST

o   North America Kick-Off - Tuesday, June 28 at 10:00 am PDT / 1:00 pm EDT

o   Japan Kick-Off - Tuesday, June 28 at 6:00 pm PDT / Wednesday, June 29 at 10:00 am JST (Tokyo)

o   APAC Kick-Off  - Tuesday, June 28 at 8:00 pm PDT / Wednesday, June 29 at 8:30 am IST (India) / Wednesday, June 29 at 11:00 am SGT (Singapore) / 1:00 pm AEDT (Sydney) 

Supporting Quotes

·         “Oracle partners are an important contributor to Oracle's success and an invaluable asset to our customers around the globe,” said Judson Althoff, Oracle senior vice president of Worldwide Alliances and Channels and Embedded Sales. “Oracle technology combined with our partners’ expertise is an unbeatable force in the market, and Oracle is committed to providing partners the tools and knowledge they need for us to win and grow together. The global partner kickoff arms partners with the insight and strategies they need to be competitive and successful in the coming fiscal year.”

·         “The Oracle OPN global kickoff provides a unique opportunity for Oracle and our partners to come together to share and receive feedback on our vision and strategy for the upcoming year,” said Ted Bereswill, senior vice president of Oracle North America Channel Sales. “Oracle continues to innovate and acquire new technologies – each of which represents new and untapped opportunities for our partners. The primary objective of this event is to help our partners understand Oracle’s strategy, solutions and how best to engage with the Oracle sales force and customers to deliver better solutions and improve business results.”

Supporting Resources

• Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN)
• Register for the OPN Kickoff Event FY12
• Lydia Smyers Announces Oracle Partner Kickoff Event FY12
• OPN Specializations
• Judson Althoff blog
• Connect with the Oracle Partner community at OPN on Facebook, OPN on LinkedIn, OPN on YouTube, and OPN on Twitter

About Oracle PartnerNetwork

Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized is the latest version of Oracle's partner program that provides partners with tools to better develop, sell and implement Oracle solutions. OPN Specialized offers resources to train and support specialized knowledge of Oracle products and solutions and has evolved to recognize Oracle growing product portfolio, partner base and business opportunity. Key to the latest enhancements to OPN is the ability for partners to differentiate through Specializations. Specializations are achieved through competency development, business results, expertise and proven success. To find out more visit http://www.oracle.com/partners.

About Oracle

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world's most complete, open, and integrated business software and hardware systems company.  For more information about Oracle, please visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com.

Trademarks

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Ufone Bay-Hisaab Offer

Ufone is offering a daily bundle of 20 on-net minutes with 500 SMS per day, at a flat daily subscription charges of Rs. 15.99 plus tax, i.e. Rs. 19.11 including tax.

Offer Details:

• Daily On-net Minutes: 20
• Daily SMS (All networks): 500
• Daily Subscription Charges: Rs. 15.99 plus tax

How to Subscribe:

• Write message “Sub” and send it to “704”
• Or Dial “710”

Note:

• The offer is not available on Ufone Life, UCircle Life, Ghanta, Super Ghanta and One Number Free packages.
• The validity of Free minutes and unlimited SMS is one calendar day
• To check remaining free SMS dial *706# or call 706, 12 paisa charges apply
• Limited time offer
• 19.5% FED on usage and 11.5% withholding tax at recharge or bill applies

QUBEE INTRODUCES BILL PAYMENT THROUGH EASYPAISA

Karachi, June 13: Qubee has introduced nationwide bill payment solution for its customers through 12,000 easypaisa outlets in every nook and corner of the country. This was stated in a statement issued here today.

“Customer convenience has been the prime focus of Qubee and we would continue to enhance the realm of services for our customers besides providing them best internet services,” Chief Marketing Officer of Qubee, Mr. Hashim Sheikh said.

He said Qubee’s new payment solution is yet another step to provide more ease to customers for their bill payments. It will save consumers’ time by paying their bills at any of the 12,000 easypaisa merchants or Telenor Franchises nationwide. 

He reiterated that Qubee ensures fast & reliable broadband internet with the best possible customer care for its users 24/7.

LARGE GLOBAL COMPANIES WORRIED ABOUT FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE

Eighty-two percent of large organizations admit to not having complete visibility into profits leading to impaired financial performance.

Research reveals senior business and IT managers across Europe, U.S., Middle East and South Africa’s large organizations struggle with a lack of visibility into profits that is impairing financial performance, morale and business success

The research, entitled “Performance Management: An Incomplete Picture,” also highlights the significant issues with the data-gathering processes that is central in creating a dangerous ‘four-month’ data lag.

The research, conducted by Dynamic Markets, surveyed 1,499 managers in large organizations in 13 countries across the world.

Managers typically spend over a third (36 percent) of their week number crunching in spreadsheets. In fact, 82 percent of those involved in scenario planning use spreadsheets to manipulate and investigate data during this task.

Handling data this way means it becomes outdated quickly -- on average, data used to make decisions is more than four months old, worse still is that 28 percent of managers do not even know the age of the data they use.

John O’Rourke, Vice President EPM Product Marketing at Oracle, said: “Management is clearly struggling to cope with the vast volumes of data being generated by their businesses, which is manifesting itself in a serious lack of visibility into profitability across the entire company. Without enterprise business planning systems to give organizations an end-to-end planning process that links strategic, financial, and operational planning to profitability and cost management, they are going to continue to struggle with fragmentation and have no option but to continue ‘making decisions in the dark.’”

“According to the research, most businesses appear to have a fragmented approach to performance management often underpinned by spreadsheets. This piecemeal approach to planning rather than opting for a holistic view can lead to dangerous inaccuracies, human error, and serious time lags. To combat this, leading edge companies are implementing common enterprise performance management systems that take the time and complexity out of ensuring all relevant information is delivered in a timely fashion, supporting more agile planning and decision-making,” said O’Rourke.

  

Eighty-two percent of large organizations admit to not having complete visibility into profits leading to impaired financial performance. 46 percent of the participants believe this creates potentially erroneous business decisions, 40 percent feel this can impair financial performance and 38 percent believe it results in flawed business planning that will hamper business success.

Professor Andy Neely, Deputy Director, AIM Research, said: "Organizations today face significant challenges in extracting accurate information on profit and performance. As the volume of available data increases, so does the complexity of organization structures. The shift to shared services, accompanied by the tendency to outsource and partner, makes it more difficult than ever before to allocate costs and apportion overheads. As this research shows, the consequence for executives is a partial picture of performance."

Eighty-seven percent of businesses managers criticize their inter-departmental data sharing and communication, with 71 percent describing the links between strategic goals, operational plans and budgets as “fragmented.”

Wateen Telecom Achieves Cisco Gold Certification in Pakistan

Wateen Telecom announced today that it has successfully re-certified for Cisco® Gold Certification. To earn Gold Certification, Wateen Telecom had to meet rigorous standards set forth by Cisco in networking competency, service, support and customer satisfaction.

Mr. Naeem Zamindar, CEO Wateen Telecom, stated, “Pakistan’s growing IT industry has evolving needs for tackling day-to-day operational issues of data processing, logistics, availabilities etc. Wateen’s partnership with Cisco enables organizations to benefit from a team of certified professionals who help them develop the right technology solutions for their organizations’ ICT needs. Our partnership model with Cisco focuses on optimising availability and ease of transacting business.”

The Cisco Resale Channel Program provides a framework for partners to build the sales, technical and Cisco Lifecycle Services skills required to deliver Cisco solutions to end customers. Through the program’s specializations and certifications, Cisco recognizes a partner’s expertise in deploying solutions based on Cisco advanced technologies and services. Using a third-party audit process, the program validates a partner’s technology skills, business practices, customer satisfaction, presales and post sales support capabilities, and other critical factors that customers consider when choosing a trusted partner.

As a Cisco Gold Certified Partner Wateen Telecom has met the requirements for attaining the broadest range of expertise across multiple technologies by achieving Cisco advanced specializations in unified communications, routing and switching, security, and wireless LAN. In addition, Wateen Telecom has integrated Cisco Lifecycle Services into its offerings and is required to maintain high levels of customer satisfaction. Cisco Gold Certification provides Wateen Telecom with access to comprehensive sales, technical, and lifecycle services training and support available from Cisco.