During the past two years, Oracle has seen an increasing demand from customers with existing IBM database installations for easier database administration and management found in Oracle Database 10g. The need is more urgent among organizations in the financial services, life sciences, government, retail and consumer-packaged goods industries, many of whom have selected Oracle Database 10g as their preferred database. Some of the companies that have recently migrated from IBM databases to Oracle Database 10g include B. Braun Melsungen, Bavarian Police Department, BLKA, Bundesversicherungsanstalt BfA, Duksung Women's University, Hella, Kiosk AG, Korea National Open University, Korea Resources Corporation, Metcash, Sahmyook University, Stadtsparkasse Hannover and Talk America.

This trend reflects the increasing market adoption of Oracle Database 10g. Since its introduction in 2003, Oracle Database 10g has been adopted by nearly 16 percent of Oracle's customer base and by more than 15,000 partners. Additionally, developers have downloaded Oracle Database 10g from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) more than 53,000 times. According to IDC's recent report, "Worldwide RDBMS 2004 Vendor Shares: Preliminary Results for the Top 5 Vendors Show a Solid Boost (March 2005, IDC #32969)," Oracle Database grew 14.5 percent year over year and increased its market share lead to 41.3 percent. Oracle continues to be the overall leader in the worldwide relational and object-relational database management systems software market.

"More and more companies see Oracle as the cure for their IBM database headaches," said Robert Shimp, vice president, Oracle Server Technologies Marketing. "While IBM database customers wait for upgrades and essential functionality, Oracle is already delivering with Oracle Database 10g."

Metcash Uses Oracle to Improve Database Reliability and Strengthen Decision-Making
One of the largest consumer goods marketing and distribution organizations in Australasia, Metcash relies on Oracle Database 10g and Oracle Warehouse Builder 10g to make critical business decisions. The Oracle solution has dramatically improved the availability and accuracy of the data warehouse that Metcash relies on to analyze buying and selling patterns, inventory, and service levels all of which have significant bearing on the company's success.

"We need to arrive at work each day confident that data is ready for analysis by our managers. Unfortunately, our data warehouse using the Informix database offering was notoriously unreliable and made this nearly impossible," said Simon Maizels, Information Management Programme Manager, Metcash. "The Oracle solution has extended the life of our infrastructure investment and more importantly has enabled us to improve the quality and reliability of information available to the company's key decision makers. This has enabled us to obtain over four million dollars in additional revenue in the first year of operation."

Talk America Increases System Performance with Oracle
As a leading provider of phone services and high speed Internet access to both residential and business customers, Talk America's top priority is that its critical business applications be available 24x7. Talk America relies on the entire Oracle platform, including Oracle Database 10g, Oracle Real Application Clusters 10g, Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g and Oracle Fusion Middleware to keep its lead generation, sales and self-service systems, up and running. Unlike IBM's database, Oracle Database 10g enabled Talk America to improve its application service levels, better manage its systems and reduce the cost of its IT systems.

"In the past, our Informix database provided a single point of failure," said Lawrence Grant, vice president of Enterprise Computing Systems, Talk America. "Now, with Oracle Database 10g and Oracle's grid infrastructure, we have a reliable, secure, scaleable solution that virtually guarantees no interruption of service."

About Oracle Database 10g
Oracle Database 10g is designed to be effectively deployed on everything from small blade servers to the biggest SMP servers and clusters of all sizes. It features automated management capabilities for easy, cost-effective operation. Oracle Database 10g's unique ability to manage all data from traditional business information to XML documents and spatial/location information makes it the ideal choice to power Online Transaction Processing, Decision Support and Content Management applications.

About Oracle
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