"Installing, maintaining and upgrading software applications can be a very cumbersome, time-consuming task for companies," said Albert Pang, Director, Enterprise Applications Research at IDC. "Efforts to make applications and tools easier to use, manage and own is a step in the right direction. With the Total Ownership Experience, customers can benefit from improvements in the overall effectiveness of their software investments, increased end-user productivity and lower ownership costs."

American College
Founded in 1927, The American College is an independent, accredited, nonprofit institution that provides graduate and professional education for students pursuing insurance and other financial services professions. American College invested in PeopleSoft in 2004 to improve operating efficiency by streamlining business processes for both students and administrators.

"The technology offerings within the Total Ownership Experience enabled the College to implement and upgrade the Finance, HRMS, Student Administration and CRM modules within a 14 month timeframe," said American College Vice President of Information Technology, Carlos Medrano. "The use of PeopleSoft Change Assistant technology completely simplified the process for each module and helped ensure high-quality upgrades that avoided major disruptions in our business."

FW Murphy
Founded in 1939, FW Murphy manufactures high quality instrumentation for equipment management and control. FW Murphy has run its business on JD Edwards World since 1996 and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne since 2002, and in that time has transformed into a demand-driven manufacturer achieving high customer satisfaction through 97 percent on time delivery. FW Murphy recently upgraded to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11 and is realizing the benefits of the Total Ownership Experience initiative.

"In terms of usability, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11 is three times better than the versions we were previously relying on," said FW Murphy Vice President of Operations, Mitch Myers. "With JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11, we are also equipped to better service our customers through streamlined order entry that helps ensure orders are delivered accurately and efficiently. The overall experience of owning JD Edwards has greatly improved and benefited our business."

Manpower Inc.
Manpower Inc. is a world leader in the employment services industry, offering customers a continuum of solutions to meet their needs throughout the employment and business cycle. The company invested in PeopleSoft software applications in 2003 to gain better insight across its global organization and to better service customers.

"We needed software applications that would enable us to easily support and service both our customers and our employees. We continue to invest in PeopleSoft applications because of the product-focused professionals that deliver on their commitments and live up to the promises of the Total Ownership Experience," said Manpower Vice President Global Applications, Kris Fitzgerald. "This is important not only to the internal needs of Manpower but also to the needs of our customers."

University of Wisconsin-Madison
In achievement and prestige, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has long been recognized as one of America's great universities. Founded in 1848 and serving over 40,000 students, UW-Madison offers a complete spectrum of liberal arts studies, professional programs and student activities. The institution implemented the PeopleSoft Student Administration application in 1998 and is in the process of upgrading its PeopleSoft Campus Solution to the latest version.

"Like all universities, we are concerned with keeping IT costs under control. Completing upgrades as smoothly and quickly as possible is an important part of the goal," said Tom Scott, Co-Director of Application Development and Integration in the Division of Information Technology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "The technologies and strategies delivered in the Total Ownership Experience program have enabled us to more effectively manage and maintain our budget commitments and timing even during an upgrade. This enables us to better serve and support our students, faculty and staff."

Increased Ease of Use, Improved Upgrades and Cost-Effective Maintenance
The Total Ownership Experience was developed in response to customer challenges with the lengthy period required to install applications, implement upgrades and resolve support issues. Research and development efforts around improving its customers' Total Ownership Experience helped guide the development of core applications including PeopleSoft Enterprise 8.9 releases and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11. Extensive customer testing and collaboration resulted in significant usability and manageability enhancements in these products.

For example, Total Ownership Experience represents significant advances in shortening and simplifying the software installation process. As a result of the initiative, many of the installation steps were made transparent to the end user and the time to install applications was reduced dramatically.

A significant goal of the Total Ownership Experience has been to improve product support and the overall maintenance process. In 2004, a 34 percent reduction in support calls per customer was reported for PeopleSoft Enterprise applications and a 22 percent reduction in support calls per customer was realized for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne. The time required to diagnose and resolve customer support issues was greatly reduced for both product lines. The initiative also contributed to making the applications easier to implement.

The steps to identify, download and apply software updates were also significantly reduced for PeopleSoft Enterprise and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne. Oracle is committed to continuing the efforts surrounding the Total Ownership Experience in its PeopleSoft Enterprise 9 and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12 releases and plans to expand the program to support the release of its next generation of enterprise applications, Project Fusion.

About Oracle
Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world's largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, please visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com

Trademarks
Oracle, JD Edwards, and PeopleSoft are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

The following (above) is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Oracle's products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.