Oracle Buys SPL WorldGroup

On November 3, 2006, Oracle announced that we have acquired SPL WorldGroup (SPL), a leading provider of revenue and operations management software for the utilities industry. We would like to take this opportunity to pledge our continued commitment to the success of your business and to outline the benefits we expect this transaction to deliver.

SPL delivers best-in-class solutions for customer care and billing, mobile workforce management, outage and distribution management, and asset management that are specifically designed for electric, gas, and water utilities. Founded in 1968, SPL has a long history of helping utilities around the world enhance customer service, improve operations, gain competitive advantage, and achieve excellence in business performance. SPL is headquartered in San Francisco and has assembled one of the world's largest teams focused on utilities solutions. In addition, SPL offers tax management solutions that facilitate integrated revenue and tax management processes for public sector enterprises.

With this acquisition, Oracle plans to deliver the most complete suite of end-to-end packaged revenue and operations management solutions for utilities to meet unique industry needs. Oracle and SPL have complementary products with a shared focus that information and adaptive business processes are keys to achieving corporate revenue and profitability goals. Oracle plans to accelerate the pace of innovation and integration of SPL's products. The strengths of SPL's solutions for utilities are planned to be combined with Oracle's industry leading database, middleware, and enterprise applications. We are also committed to supporting our respective customers, which include many of the most successful companies in the world.

We anticipate that the combination will provide many key benefits to our customers:

• Advanced insight and care of customers: A combined Oracle and SPL solution is expected to provide a real-time 360-degree view of the end-customer that helps utilities maximize lifetime value and increase service profitability.
• Improved revenue and operations management: Utilities should now be able to avoid revenue leakage across end-to-end transactions, and increase visibility and auditability of key business processes. The integrated Oracle and SPL solution is expected to allow customers to proactively manage enterprise operations, cost effectively bill for services, and utilize best practices to enhance revenues and profitability.
• Improve competitive advantage: The combined solutions will help facilitate the transformation of utility operations based on a leading edge infrastructure that improves competitive advantage.
• Industry needs addressed in a dynamic environment: By combining the talents of both organizations, we should be better able to address evolving customer needs and effectively respond to industry trends that are driving the demand for customer-centric, cost effective solutions.
• Backed by a single global vendor: Customers will have access to proven best-in-class utility management solutions combined with comprehensive, world-class capabilities in applications and technology infrastructure—all from the same vendor. This is expected to significantly reduce total cost of ownership while satisfying customer demand for a global integrated platform that supports varied business processes, services, markets, and geographies.

We are excited about this acquisition and how it will accelerate innovation in the utilities industry. More information about the transaction can be found at oracle.com/SPL.

We appreciate your continued support.

Sincerely,

Charles Phillips
President
Oracle