Oracle today announced its eighth generation SPARC platform, delivering new levels of security capabilities, performance, and availability for critical customer workloads. Powered by the new SPARC M8 microprocessor, new Oracle systems and IaaS deliver a modern enterprise platform, including proven Software in Silicon with new v2 advancements, enabling customers to cost-effectively deploy their most critical business applications and scale-out application environments with extreme performance both on-premises and in Oracle Cloud.

SPARC M8 processor-based systems, including the Oracle SuperCluster M8 engineered systems and SPARC T8 and M8 servers, are designed to seamlessly integrate with existing infrastructures and include fully integrated virtualization and management for private cloud. All existing commercial and custom applications will run on SPARC M8 systems unchanged with new levels of performance, security capabilities, and availability. The SPARC M8 processor with Software in Silicon v2 extends the industry’s first Silicon Secured Memory, which provides always-on hardware-based memory protection for advanced intrusion protection and end-to-end encryption and Data Analytics Accelerators (DAX) with open API’s for breakthrough performance and efficiency running Database analytics and Java streams processing. Oracle Cloud SPARC Dedicated Compute service will also be updated with the SPARC M8 processor.

“Oracle has long been a pioneer in engineering software and hardware together to secure high-performance infrastructure for any workload of any size,” said Edward Screven, chief corporate architect, Oracle. “SPARC was already the fastest, most secure processor in the world for running Oracle Database and Java. SPARC M8 extends that lead even further.”

The SPARC M8 processor offers security enhancements delivering 2x faster encryption and 2x faster hashing than x86 and 2x faster than SPARC M7 microprocessors. The SPARC M8 processor’s unique design also provides always-on security by default and built-in protection of in-memory data structures from hacks and programming errors. SPARC M8’s silicon innovation provides new levels of performance and efficiency across all workloads, including:  

• Database: Engineered to run Oracle Database faster than any other microprocessor, SPARC M8 delivers 2x faster OLTP performance per core than x86 and 1.4x faster than M7 microprocessors, as well as up to 7x faster database analytics than x86.
• Java: SPARC M8 delivers 2x better Java performance than x86 and 1.3x better than M7 microprocessors.  DAX v2 produces 8x more efficient Java streams processing, improving overall application performance.
• In Memory Analytics: Innovative new processor delivers 7x Queries per Minute (QPM)/core than x86 for database analytics.

 

Oracle is committed to delivering the latest in SPARC and Solaris technologies and servers to its global customers. Oracle’s long history of binary compatibility across processor generations continues with M8, providing an upgrade path for customers when they are ready. Oracle has also publicly committed to supporting Solaris until at least 2034.

Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL) today announced fiscal 2018 Q1 results. Total Revenues were up 7% from the prior year to $9.2 billion. Cloud plus On-Premise Software Revenues were up 9% to $7.4 billion. Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS) revenues were up 62% to $1.1 billion. Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS) plus Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) revenues were up 28% to $400 million. Total Cloud Revenues were up 51% to $1.5 billion.

GAAP Operating Income was up 7% to $2.8 billion and Operating Margin was 31%. Non-GAAP Operating Income was up 11% to $3.8 billion and non-GAAP Operating Margin was 41%. GAAP Net Income was up 21% to $2.2 billion, while non-GAAP Net Income was up 14% to $2.7 billion. GAAP Earnings Per Share was up 19% to $0.52, while non-GAAP Earnings Per Share was up 12% to $0.62.

Short-term deferred revenues were up 9% compared with a year ago to $10.3 billion. Operating cash flow on a trailing twelve-month basis was up 8% to $14.8 billion.

“The sustained hyper-growth in our multi-billion dollar cloud business continues to drive Oracle’s overall revenue and earnings higher and higher,” said Oracle CEO, Safra Catz. “In Q1, total revenues were up 7%, GAAP EPS was up 19%, and non-GAAP EPS was up 12%. Oracle is off to a very, very strong start in FY18.”

“With SaaS revenue up 62%, our cloud applications business continues to grow more than twice as fast as Salesforce.com,” said Oracle CEO, Mark Hurd. “ERP is our largest and most important cloud applications business. We now have about 5,000 Fusion ERP customers plus 12,000 NetSuite ERP customers in the Oracle Cloud. That’s 30 times more ERP customers than Workday.”

“In a couple of weeks, we will announce the world’s first fully autonomous database cloud service,” said Oracle Chairman and CTO, Larry Ellison. “Based on machine learning, the latest version of Oracle is a totally automated “self-driving” system that does not require human beings to manage or tune the database. Using AI to eliminate most sources of human error enables Oracle to offer database SLA’s that guarantee 99.995% reliability while charging much less than AWS.”

The Board of Directors also declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.19 per share of outstanding common stock. This dividend will be paid to stockholders of record as of the close of business on October 11, 2017, with a payment date of October 25, 2017.

Q1 Fiscal 2018 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast

Oracle will hold a conference call and webcast today to discuss these results at 2:00 p.m. Pacific. You may listen to the call by dialing (816) 287-5563, Passcode: 425392. To access the live webcast, please visit the Oracle Investor Relations website at http://www.oracle.com/investor. In addition, Oracle’s Q1 results and Fiscal 2018 financial tables are available on the Oracle Investor Relations website.

A replay of the conference call will also be available by dialing (855) 859-2056 or (404) 537-3406, Passcode: 82330974.

Oracle announced today that it has joined the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) as a Platinum Member. In addition, Oracle is releasing Kubernetes on Oracle Linux and open sourcing a Terraform Kubernetes Installer for the next-generation Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. As such, developers gain unparalleled simplicity for running their cloud native workloads on Oracle.

As enterprises accelerate how they build and deploy mission-critical applications, development teams are seeking an open, cloud-neutral, container-native technology stack that avoids lock-in. By joining CNCF, Oracle is demonstrating its support for this effort as well as the Kubernetes open-source community, the core component of the CNCF technology stack.

Kubernetes is the industry leading open source container orchestration and management platform rapidly emerging as the standard for containerized applications. Deploying Kubernetes can be complex, especially with regards to storage, security and networking. By open sourcing its fully-supported, automated Kubernetes Terraform template for the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Oracle is helping developers avoid these challenges and easily install, run and manage Kubernetes-based container apps with the extreme performance of bare metal.

Additionally, Oracle is releasing Oracle Linux Container Services for use with Kubernetes, simplifying the configuration and setup of Kubernetes for any environment on Oracle Linux: public cloud, private cloud, and customer on-premises. This solution has been developed as an extension to Oracle Linux and Oracle Linux Container Services for Docker, with a streamlined installation model so developers can easily setup and deploy their orchestration environment in a matter of minutes.

“Nobody has more experience managing complex enterprise workloads than Oracle. By joining the CNCF, we’re making it easier for enterprises to leverage the power of container-native technology to simplify their infrastructure environments to run in true hybrid cloud mode – in any cloud,” said Mark Cavage, vice president of software development at Oracle. “CNCF technologies such as Kubernetes, Prometheus, gRPC and OpenTracing are critical parts of both our own and our customers’ development toolchains. Together with the CNCF, Oracle is cultivating an open container ecosystem built for cloud interoperability, enterprise workloads and performance.”

“Oracle has decades of experience meeting the needs of world-class enterprises,” said Chris Aniszczyk, chief operating officer of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. “We are excited to have Oracle join CNCF as a platinum member, and believe that their key role will help define the future of enterprise cloud.”

Today’s announcement follows a string of recent news underscoring Oracle’s commitment to open source and the container ecosystem, including dedicating engineering resources to the Kubernetes project, open-sourcing several container utilities and making its flagship databases and developer tools to the Docker Store marketplace.

Today Oracle Health Sciences announced that its general manager, Steve Rosenberg, has been selected by PharmaVOICE magazine as one of the most inspiring people in the life sciences industry. Steve will be recognized with this prestigious award during the PharmaVOICE 100 Celebration on Thursday, September 14 in New York City.

 

Steve was chosen as a PharmaVOICE 100 honoree for his leadership in driving the development of new and innovative technologies that are positively impacting efficiencies in clinical research, which help pharmaceutical companies bring new drugs to market faster. With nearly 40 years in technology, and 22 years in Health Sciences technology, including his pivotal role in accelerating the adoption of Electronic Data Capture (EDC) and defining the Integrated Clinical Environment (ICE), Steve recognized both the potential value and the significant challenges in bringing the data revolution and the cloud to life sciences. From the conservative regulatory environment to the sensitive nature of introducing new treatments to humans, Steve knew it was never going to be an easy road but to Rosenberg, these challenges have made his job worthwhile.

 

“I have a drive to succeed and grow our business while enabling our customers to innovate on their mission to develop new medicines. The patient is waiting, and it is our job and our joy at Oracle to push innovation in technology to help our customers reach these patients faster,” said Rosenberg.

 

In 2014, Mr. Rosenberg was asked by the head of Oracle Industries to take on a leadership role within the company’s health sciences business, which provides the infrastructure and technology that powers everything from clinical trials to population healthcare. Since joining Oracle, he has overseen the development of innovative technologies including the launch of the company’s most recent offering, Oracle Health Sciences Clinical One Platform, an eClinical platform that unifies clinical development operations and information and reimagines how technology supports clinical trials for maximum efficiency. The company’s flagship drug safety cloud offering, Oracle Health Sciences Argus continues to lead the market, enabling drug manufacturers to make faster and better safety decisions, optimize their global compliance and manage risk.

 

“Steve is a true change agent whose insights and commitment to technology innovations is helping to bring more life-saving therapies to market faster. His early understanding of the data revolution and the cloud in Life Sciences has enabled him to get in front of the data management challenges and create leading-edge technology to solve some of today’s most pressing issues in the eClinical space,” said Taren Grom, editor of PharmaVOICE. 

 

This year’s distinguished honorees were nominated by thousands of PharmaVOICE readers and were selected for inclusion based on substantive accounts describing how they have inspired or motivated their colleagues, peers, and even competitors; their positive impact on patients, their organizations, and the industry at large; their innovative and game-changing strategies and thinking; their mentorship and guidance to the next generation of leaders; as well as their willingness to give their time and resources to their communities and philanthropic causes.

 

“It is truly an honor to be recognized for my contributions to the life sciences industry, but more importantly, for our work in bringing innovative technology to our customers, who give hope to patients who wait in the balance for new therapies that have the potential to save their lives or deliver a better quality of life,” Rosenberg went on to say.

 

For additional information, visit Oracle Health Sciences Clinical One Platform, Oracle Health Sciences Argus Safety and Oracle Health Sciences Data Management Workbench. Engage with us on Twitter

About Oracle

The Oracle Cloud offers complete SaaS application suites for ERP, HCM and CX, plus best-in-class database Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) from data centers throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. For more information about Oracle, please visit us at oracle.com.

 

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

 

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Valerie Beaudett                                                                                
Oracle                                                                                                            
+1.650.400.7833                                                                                
valerie.beaudett@oracle.com                                                           

 

Oracle today announced significant enhancements to the Oracle Internet of Things (IoT) Cloud. The offering now features built-in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning that powers Digital Twin and Digital Thread capabilities. As such, customers and partners can quickly gain operation-wide visibility and leverage predictive insights from connected assets. These insights can decrease deployment times, reduce costs, improve business outcomes, and accelerate new market opportunities. Combining the power of Oracle IoT Cloud and enterprise applications, Oracle also introduced new industry solutions for digital field service, smart connected factories, and digital fleet management.

“IoT holds the potential to transform today’s siloed operations into a modern, interconnected, digital set of workflows with real-time visibility and responsiveness,” said Bhagat Nainani, group vice president, IoT Applications at Oracle. “Oracle continues to push the boundaries of IoT to help our customers significantly simplify their IoT deployments. By receiving real-time data streams enhanced with predictive insights, they can reach new levels of intelligence and a much quicker realization of ROI.”

Today’s expansion follows the recent introduction of new Oracle IoT Cloud Applications for asset monitoring, connected workforce, fleet monitoring, and production monitoring. Also, in the past six months alone, Oracle has more than tripled its IoT application ecosystem of device and systems integration partners. Oracle IoT Cloud is offered both as software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, as well as platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings, enabling a high degree of adaptability for even the most demanding implementations.

“Hitachi Consulting is constantly looking for industry leaders like Oracle to help clients and prospects harness the power of data and IoT to optimize operational and financial performance, outpace their competition and solve significant business problems,” said Garth Carter, vice president North America Sales, Hitachi Consulting. “Our longstanding, strategic relationship with Oracle delivers industrial IoT solutions to digitize the physical world for manufacturing, energy, and transportation. In particular, Hitachi is leveraging Oracle IoT Applications—asset monitoring and production monitoring—that are uniquely engineered to meet specific industry and functional needs. These applications have a depth of OT, IT and IoT functionality that no competitor can match.”

New capabilities introduced today include:

• Digital Twin for Supply Chain Management
  Digital Twin is a digital representation of a physical asset or equipment that enhances traditional analytics approaches. The object model includes multi-faceted views into current, historical, and predictive data, as well as operational and behavioral dimensions of that asset. This enables remote users to not only monitor the health of that asset to prevent failures before they occur, but also to run simulations of “what-if” scenarios in the context of the business processes. With Digital Twin, organizations have a new operational paradigm to interact with the physical world, allowing lower operational and capital expenditures, minimizing downtime, and optimizing asset performance.
• Digital Thread for Supply Chain Management
  Supply Chain practitioners have spent millions of dollars in implementing SCM and ERP systems, but most often, data is manually fed into these systems. Digital Thread is a connected business process framework that leverages IoT and creates a “system of systems” by connecting traditionally siloed elements in real-time throughout the digital supply chain. By providing an end-to-end view of an asset throughout the entire manufacturing lifecycle, Digital Thread seamlessly bridges the entire supply chain process—from product design and order fulfillment, to manufacturing and product life cycle management, to warehousing and transportation, to logistics and procurement.
• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
  Built-in AI and machine learning features are now fully integrated across Oracle’s IoT solutions portfolio. These technologies leverage machine data in the context of business data from applications, such as manufacturing, maintenance, service, and logistics. The built-in operational analytics help detect anomalies, predict equipment failures, and recommend the best course of action. They also provide the intelligence needed to evolve capabilities to increase effectiveness and experiences of applications.
• Industry Solutions Built on IoT Cloud Applications
  Oracle IoT industry solutions help customers reimagine and innovate business solutions for the connected, intelligent, context-aware, digital enterprise. New solutions introduced today include:
  • Digital Field Service: Showcases intelligent remote monitoring, failure prediction, over-the-air repair, and dynamic technician dispatch. The solution features IoT Asset Monitoring Cloud, CX Service Cloud, CX Engagement Cloud, and CX Field Service Cloud, plus the use of augmented reality (AR) for guided equipment repair.
  • Smart Connected Factory: Demonstrates how incident detection, root cause analysis, and smart resolution are performed within minutes in a connected factory. The solution features IoT Production Monitoring Cloud, SCM Cloud and ERP Cloud, and the use of virtual reality (VR) to navigate the manufacturing floor. It can also be used for remote worker training.
  • Digital Fleet Management: Showcases real-time shipment tracking, risk management, and logistics synchronization. The solution features IoT Fleet Management Cloud and Oracle Logistics Cloud.

Additional Information

For additional information, visit Oracle Cloud and connect with Oracle SCM Cloud and Oracle IoT Cloud Service on Twitter.

Oracle today announced its collaboration with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation to develop an Internet of Things (IoT) platform for smart manufacturing. With Oracle Cloud, Mitsubishi Electric developed its new FA-IT Open Platform for factory automation. Using edge computing between devices and business applications, the new platform enables the rapid collection, analysis, and utilization of data at production site.

With organizations rapidly adopting Industry 4.0, manufacturers are increasingly seeking to optimize their total manufacturing processes by using IoT to collect data from all equipment in factories for visualization and analysis. Developing such IoT systems from scratch is an enormous task requiring that data be collected and modeled from a wide variety of production equipment, including existing equipment, for analytical purposes.

With FA-IT Open Platform, vendors can create manufacturing applications for operation on the platform, including connecting the platform to industrial networks to collect data from diverse devices and production equipment. The cloud-connected platform can be used to link manufacturing sites with cloud vendors' own cloud-supported manufacturing-optimization services for supply chains, administration of multiple factories worldwide, and other applications.

FA-IT Open Platform leverages Oracle Database Cloud, Oracle Java Cloud, Oracle BI Cloud, Oracle IoT Cloud, Oracle IoT Production Monitoring Cloud, Oracle SOA Cloud, and Oracle Infrastructure as a Service. Information received in real time from machine tools and production terminals is received by Oracle IoT Cloud, enabling efficient real time processing with the extensible infrastructure. Mitsubishi Electric utilizes machine learning of Oracle Database Cloud, the reporting function of Oracle BI Cloud, and the cost-effective Oracle Cloud Infrastructure in the analysis of accumulated Big Data, contributing to further development of solutions in the factory automation area for customers and to smart manufacturing industry.

Supporting Quote: “Mitsubishi Electric develops advanced technologies and products for rapidly emerging factory automation,” said Toshiya Takahashi, corporate executive group senior vice president, factory automation system, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation. “Our e-F@ctory concept for integrated automation reduces the total cost of developing, producing and maintaining products. Mitsubishi Electric’s new FA-IT Open Platform is based on edge computing to accelerate IoT utilization for smart manufacturing. By adding Oracle Cloud services to this platform, we believe that it will be possible to visualize factories and build an application development environment. In order to provide the platform to customers early, we will also work with partner companies, including IT companies, to develop applications utilizing the platform."

Oracle NetSuite, one of the world’s leading providers of cloud-based financials / ERP, HR, Professional Services Automation (PSA) and omnichannel commerce software suites, today announced that Lfplaza Group, a wholesale distributor of luxury and designer fashion clothing, bags, shoes and accessories, has scaled its business dramatically since deploying NetSuite OneWorld shortly after its launch in 2012. Based in Hong Kong, the company relies on NetSuite for financials, inventory management, CRM and marketing, as well as multi-subsidiary and multi-currency management for the Hong Kong, Australian and U.S. dollars, Chinese renminbi, British pound, Japanese yen, New Taiwan dollar and the Euro. NetSuite’s unified cloud business management platform has given Lfplaza scalability and agility as its business has soared from the startup phase to $300 million HKD (about $38.4 million USD) in revenue in just five years.

Starting out, Lfplaza had in place an entry-level accounting system from a Chinese software vendor. After evaluating several competing solutions, Lfplaza quickly settled on NetSuite OneWorld as an ideal fit for its objectives of an integrated system that could support rapid growth. NetSuite OneWorld today powers end-to-end processes for Lfplaza’s sales of goods from more than 100 brands to a network of over 600 wholesale clients and about 40 regional multi-brand boutiques across Hong Kong, mainland China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

“NetSuite forms the core backbone on which we’ve rapidly grown our business,” said Jack Tsao, Lfplaza CEO. “We’ve been able to scale dramatically without adding too many staff. We’re very glad we started early with NetSuite as it gave us room to grow.”

As a cloud-based system, NetSuite enables Lfplaza to avoid the high capital expenditures of servers and software needed with traditional on-premise business systems. Ease of use, efficient workflows and high visibility into mission-critical data have allowed the 100+-person company to minimise administrative and operational costs and instead focus new hires on revenue-driving sales and marketing activities. Easy access to NetSuite across Lfplaza’s 10 wholesale stores, its head office in Hong Kong and three subsidiaries (Hong Kong, China and Macau) enables the company to ensure staff work from the same set of timely, reliable data.

“The advantages with NetSuite are felt across the business,” Tsao said. “We would be hiring more staff if we didn’t have NetSuite. It’s definitely been a very worthwhile investment.”

Implementation and optimisation by NetSuite Solution Provider Fern Limited, in Hong Kong, has helped Lfplaza make the most of its NetSuite OneWorld solution as usage evolved from inventory to accounting and CRM. Benefits that Lfplaza has realised with NetSuite include:

• Real-time inventory management. NetSuite gives Lfplaza real-time visibility into tens of thousands of SKUs, particularly important as new products are constantly added. It also helps Lfplaza account for subtle variations in products, such as shiny vs. matte leather for the same handbag.
• Business reporting. Lfplaza makes extensive use of NetSuite’s reporting and analytics capabilities to track revenue and product sales by brand, type of goods, gender, regions and other dimensions. Insights derived are vital to Lfplaza’s ability to adapt the business and product lineup as needed.
• Agility in a fast-paced market. NetSuite has helped Lfplaza achieve business agility, better manage brand and customer partnerships, and optimise inventory and pricing in the fast-paced and rapidly changing luxury fashion market.
• Multi-currency, multi-subsidiary management. NetSuite OneWorld lets Lfplaza easily transact in currencies including Hong Kong, Australian and U.S. dollars, Chinese renminbi, British pound, Japanese yen, New Taiwan dollar and the Euro, and manage three subsidiaries with efficient financial consolidation.
• CRM capabilities. NetSuite CRM gives Lfplaza sales staff a unified record of all customer account, interaction and order history information to help drive sales and provide a superior customer experience.

“The fashion inventory moves very fast, with increasing velocity and sophistication every year,” Tsao said. “With NetSuite OneWorld, it’s very easy to adapt, customise processes and stay current, exploring all the business channels and marketing opportunities out there so we can continue to scale.”

This year, Oracle is hiring more than five-thousand new engineers, consultants, sales and support people into its rapidly growing cloud business. This injection of talent will help Oracle sustain the momentum in what is already the world’s fastest growing multi-billion dollar cloud business.

“Central to Oracle’s success is our empowered, inspired and engaged workforce,” said Joyce Westerdahl, Oracle Executive Vice President, Human Resources. “We’re hiring experienced sales and engineering professionals eager to contribute to Oracle’s cloud growth and champion our products. We are also recruiting high-performing recent college graduates and offering them a world-class training program to prepare them for a career in the technology industry.”

This year, Oracle has already hired more than 2,650 cloud sales professionals and 1,500 cloud developers in the United States.

To learn more about careers at Oracle and apply for open positions, please visit https://www.oracle.com/corporate/careers/.

Today, Oracle announced that PurCotton has deployed Oracle Retail Merchandise Operations Management Suite, Oracle Retail Planning and Optimization and Oracle Retail Insights to support the growth of its retail business. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of Winner Medical Group Inc., PurCotton inherits the parent company’s 20-year technology and manufacturing expertise in medical-grade cotton-based products. PurCotton is devoted to providing safe, comfortable and eco-friendly cotton products to meet consumer needs with a focus on quality life, mother and baby care, feminine care and medical care.

Since its founding in December of 2009, PurCotton has grown quickly managing 114 stores in shopping malls across China. In addition PurCotton also operates an online business to meet the demands of omnichannel consumers. PurCotton sales at TMALL.com and JD.com, two of China’s largest ecommerce platforms, have doubled for four consecutive years. Singles’ Day 2016, China’s largest online shopping festival, is an example of PurCotton’s growth with 1,180,000 on-line orders and sales of over 260 million RMB. PurCotton chose Oracle Retail for solutions that could scale and serve as a foundation for continued omnichannel growth.   

“We plan to open between 30 and 40 stores every year, with a goal of increasing our total revenue 100% annually. Our core customer base has grown to about 6 million,” said Li Jianquan, Managing Director of PurCotton Group. “We needed a strong foundation to run our retail business.  Oracle Retail has the industry experience and retail specific solutions to support our growth strategy.”

“Oracle Retail provides a complete and integrated suite of solutions from planning to execution,” said He Kaifeng, Chief Information Officer, PurCotton Group. “We needed a solution which could support our strategy, which includes our brick-and-mortar stores driving sales through multiple channels. With better visibility, insight and planning, PurCotton can better meet high customer demands.”

With the help of Accenture, PurCotton Group deployed Oracle Retail Merchandising System, Oracle Retail Merchandising Insight, Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial Planning, Oracle Retail Assortment Planning and Oracle Retail Allocation.

“Oracle Retail has built end-to-end process capabilities within our suite of applications and cloud services that can deliver individually or collectively to achieve Empowered Commerce,” said Ray Carlin, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Oracle Retail. “We are impressed by the growth trajectory and achievements of PurCotton and look forward to playing a role in their continued success.”

Oracle NetSuite, one of the world’s leading providers of cloud-based financials / ERP, HR, Professional Services Automation (PSA) and omnichannel commerce software suites, today announced that ROLI, a music technology innovator and maker of the award-winning Seaboard instrument, has implemented NetSuite OneWorld to manage critical business processes including financials, inventory management, order management, CRM, multi-currency management for the British pound, Euro and US dollar, and multi-subsidiary management for three subsidiaries in the UK and two in the US. As a result of its implementation of NetSuite OneWorld in September 2016, ROLI is better positioned to take advantage of rapid sales growth as innovative products like the Seaboard Block and Lightpad Block become more popular to music-makers.

Founded in 2009 in London, ROLI has revolutionized the world of musical instruments. Its newest product, Seaboard Block, is the most portable and versatile model of the multi-award-winning Seaboard, a digital instrument that is an evolution of the piano keyboard. Seaboards replace the white and black keys of a piano with a pliable, touch-responsive surface that lets musicians control sound in far more ways than they can on acoustic or electronic instruments. Last year ROLI also launched BLOCKS, a modular music-making system that allows musicians to connect musical Blocks together and build their instrument as they go. As demand for its products took off, ROLI determined that it needed more comprehensive and professional business systems to meet the opportunities of its next phase of growth.

ROLI selected NetSuite OneWorld due to its 360-degree customer view, inventory management and cloud-based architecture. NetSuite OneWorld provides the flexibility, agility and scalability ROLI needed for continued growth and a real-time view of business performance.

“As a company, ROLI is focused on innovation, growth and delivering world-class experiences for its customers and music lovers everywhere,” said Mark Woodhams, Managing Director, EMEA for Oracle NetSuite. “NetSuite OneWorld is an ideal fit for those goals, as a flexible, scalable solution with global reach that can serve as the foundation to continue to build upon its success.”

NetSuite OneWorld supports 190 currencies, 20 languages, automated tax calculation and reporting in more than 100 countries; customer transactions in more than 200 countries; and enables businesses to streamline their mission-critical business processes. NetSuite OneWorld supports ROLI’s worldwide growth and innovation by providing:

• Real-time global financial consolidation. NetSuite OneWorld gives ROLI real-time visibility across all its subsidiaries, with a single financial system of record.
• Superior inventory management that enables ROLI to plan for how much inventory it needs, track the movement of goods, and meet customer demand much more quickly.
• Centralized order management that meets and exceeds rising customer expectations for omnichannel fulfillment across multiple sales channels by eliminating manual bottlenecks, preventing errors and establishing a smooth flow from sales quote to order fulfillment ensuring timely invoicing and payment.
• 360-degree view of its customers allowing the company to provide better customer support and service across telephone and email channels.
• Breadth of functionality designed for modern businesses, enabling the company to streamline mission-critical business processes and improve operational efficiency.
• A highly scalable system with the ability to quickly and easily add functionality as a business evolves.
• Built-in business intelligence that provides real-time insights into key business performance indicators for a unified view of the organization, and delivers a single version of truth.
• A flexible and agile platform that enables the company to customize NetSuite to meet its business requirements and to integrate with other third-party systems to meet its specific needs with NetSuite’s SuiteCloud Platform.

Extending its commitment to helping organizations drive predictable performance and report with confidence, Oracle today announced significant expansions to Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) Cloud. The latest additions to Oracle EPM Cloud include new offerings for tax reporting, and profitability and cost management as well as new strategic modeling and disclosure management capabilities.

In today’s global economy, organizations need to continually refine their business models to respond to disruptive threats and competitive opportunities. To help organizations successfully manage these changes, from strategy to results, Oracle EPM Cloud empowers finance teams to quickly and effectively embrace digital technologies and modern best practices. As a result, Oracle EPM Cloud enables organizations to drive accurate and agile plans across finance and operational lines of business, accelerate financial close, streamline internal and external reporting, and ensure compliance with tax reporting regulations.

“Today’s business leaders are faced with unprecedented changes that demand a rethink of traditional EPM processes and models,” said Hari Sankar, group vice president, EPM product management at Oracle. “To be effective in this new operating environment, finance leaders need to drive operations with confidence, monitor results continuously, and course correct with agility. With the latest additions to Oracle EPM Cloud, we are empowering our customers to embrace change and take advantage of the cloud to capitalize on opportunities faster than their competition.”

To further extend Oracle EPM Cloud and give organizations fast and intuitive insight into profitability and cost, Oracle has introduced Oracle Profitability and Cost Management Cloud. The new offering enables business users to take ownership of allocation-based business processes such as customer/product profitability, management allocations, and shared services costing. As a result, organizations can enhance business performance by gaining insight into hidden profit and cost drivers across key business dimensions such as products, customers, sales, and channels.

To help organizations gain complete access to the financial data and processes needed to build an efficient and transparent corporate tax function, Oracle has introduced Oracle Tax Reporting Cloud. The new offering helps streamline all tax data collection and analysis processes and enables global organizations to manage complex country-specific tax reporting requirements through automation.

In addition to the new offerings, Oracle has also extended the capabilities of Oracle EPM Cloud to help organizations of all sizes lead with confidence in the digital economy. New Strategic Modeling capabilities enable organizations to create long-range forecast models with sophisticated scenario modeling capabilities and debt and capital structure planning features, while new Disclosure Management capabilities allow users to develop regulatory filings in a unified and collaborative environment.

“Our clients are facing constant and growing disruption in their businesses and highly developed planning and analysis capabilities are a must for leading CFOs,” said Richard Beacham, principal and EPM practice lead for KPMG in the U.S. “With the new offerings and capabilities Oracle is delivering, we believe our clients will continue to adopt our Oracle EPM Cloud-enabled solutions to help transform their business and accelerate competitive advantage.”

In recognition of its Oracle EPM Cloud capabilities, Oracle was recently placed in the Leaders Quadrant in two Gartner Magic Quadrant analyst reports: the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Strategic Corporate Performance Management Solutions¹, and the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Financial Corporate Performance Management Solutions (FPCM)².

For additional information on Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) Cloud, visit Facebook and Twitter or the Modern Finance Leader blog.

Gartner Disclaimer
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

1. Gartner, “Magic Quadrant for Cloud Strategic Corporate Performance Management Solutions,” by Christopher Iervolino, John E. Van Decker, June 29, 2017. Oracle has acquired distribution rights for this report, expiration June 30, 2018.
2. Gartner, “Magic Quadrant for Cloud Financial Corporate Performance Management Solutions,” by John E. Van Decker, Christopher Iervolino, John E. Van Decker, June 29, 2017. Oracle has acquired distribution rights for this report, expiration June 30, 2018.

ABC Aerolíneas, S.A. de C.V., operating as Mexican airline Interjet, has seen significant efficiency gains from using Oracle’s Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management to coordinate, manage and execute key projects.

Interjet’s projects range from the acquisition of new aircraft to the introduction of new routes to the installation of flight simulators. The airline notes that Primavera P6 EPPM’s flexibility to adapt to different levels of project complexity and size has enabled Interjet to increase its efficiency by more than 50 percent among more than 200 projects.

"With the former tools, planning was more complicated and required us to develop complementary tools to show in a very graphic and simple way the status of each project and each responsible person. Primavera P6 EPPM has reduced the effort and time needed to analyze and present results, with benefits for those who manage the projects, those who execute and those who follow up. Oracle’s software has allowed us to contribute in a coordinated and effective way to the development of the company," said Carlos Núñez Brambila, Project Director of Interjet.

With Primavera P6 EPPM from Oracle Construction and Engineering, Interjet now also has the ability to streamline management responsibilities. It can designate one member of the project management team to control the project development, identify project deviations and bring visibility to key stakeholders to make informed decisions. Additionally, Interjet is able to map clear objectives and responsibilities for each project to corresponding specialists based on their knowledge and skills. The result is that resources are leveraged more effectively through closer coordination between various departments and managers.

“Oracle’s Primavera P6 EPPM provides the real-time collaboration, visibility and scalability that enable organizations like Interjet to manage projects of any size efficiently and effectively,” said Andy Verone, Vice President, Product Strategy, Oracle Construction and Engineering. “We are thrilled to deliver transformative solutions that are improving project and business outcomes for customers in Mexico and around the world.”

Using Primavera P6 EPPM, Interjet has been able to eliminate:

• 93 percent of the time spent on the generation of status reports by specific tasks
• 67 percent of the time spent on work plan updates
• 83 percent of the time spent on creating new project reports

"The transformation of Interjet, in its processes of planning, monitoring and execution of projects, through an efficient technological platform, is the mission of Oracle. To understand the challenges Mexican companies face day-by-day and to solve their needs with a platform that empowers its strengths is how Oracle contributes to the transformation of Mexico. Interjet has managed through the planning and database management solutions to support the development of projects that drive the growth and presence of the airline nationally and internationally," said Javier Cordero, Managing Director of Oracle Mexico.

Oracle today announced that Oracle Exadata Cloud is now available on Oracle’s next-generation cloud infrastructure. The marriage of Oracle Exadata, the highest performing on-premises and public cloud database platform, with Oracle Cloud’s unique bare metal compute and storage services, delivers a combination of performance and availability for the entire application stack that only Oracle can deliver. These integrated and fully programmable cloud services enhance all stages of application development and deployment through faster connectivity, provisioning, processing, and database access with unmatched technology and industry-leading price performance.

“Oracle’s next-generation cloud infrastructure is optimized for enterprise workloads and now supports Oracle Exadata, the most powerful database platform,” said Kash Iftikhar, vice president of product management, Oracle. “With the power of Oracle Exadata, customers using our infrastructure are able to bring applications to the cloud never previously possible, without the cost of re-architecture, and achieve incredible performance throughout the stack. From front-end application servers to database and storage, we are optimizing our customers’ most critical applications.”

With the increased levels of speed and availability now possible, high-demand applications such as those utilizing real-time targeting, analytics, or personalization now run in the cloud with extreme performance. Only Oracle Cloud Infrastructure offers: self-provisioning of multiple bare metal servers in less than five minutes with each supporting over 4 million IOPS*, block storage that linearly scales by 60 IOPS per GB, and now Oracle Exadata Cloud on the same low latency Virtual Cloud Networks. This combination of features enables applications to run at unparalleled speed. In addition, only Oracle Cloud Infrastructure offers complete compatibility with Oracle Databases deployed on-premises, helping ensure a smooth transition to the cloud, and an efficient hybrid cloud strategy. Oracle Exadata Cloud has expanded its geographical footprint into the US West (Phoenix, Ariz.) region, further enabling organizations worldwide to experience all the benefits of this high-performance system in the cloud, without the burden of managing and maintaining it internally.

"FICO provides real-time fraud, risk management and compliance software solutions to thousands of banks around the globe,” said Doug Clare, vice president for product marketing, FICO. “These clients, including the world’s largest financial institutions, demand the highest levels of solution performance, reliability, and security. When we needed to extend the performance of one of our key compliance risk applications to even higher throughput and resiliency standards, we looked to Oracle, who has been a reliable partner to FICO for many years. In our testing, the combination of Oracle Exadata and bare metal compute running on Oracle’s next-generation cloud infrastructure allowed us to set a new high water mark in performance for this mission-critical application. We were very impressed with both the collaboration and the results Oracle was able to provide, and look forward to bringing these impressive results to our joint clients."

Read more about bare metal compute performance on the Oracle blog here.

*Based on testing with the Gartner Cloud Harmony test suite

Connecting people to the information they need through the power of cloud technology, Oracle today announced that Oracle Analytics Cloud is experiencing significant growth with thousands of organizations subscribing to the service globally. In addition to tripling adoption over the last 12 months, nearly 75 percent of customers are new to Oracle Analytics Cloud, ranging from small and medium sized businesses accessing enterprise-class analytics for the first time to large organizations modernizing their analytics platforms. Arlington Orthopedic Associates, Outfront Media, and Skanska AB are among those using Oracle Analytics Cloud to identify new savings, help increase their return on investment, and fuel innovation.

In response to this rapid growth, Oracle released a new version of Oracle Analytics Cloud earlier this year, extending its breadth and depth with new capabilities such as user-driven scenario modeling, next-generation mobile and social analytics, and complete customer control over their cloud environment. 

“Oracle Analytics Cloud makes it easy for customers to gain new insights and reap the rewards of digital transformation by offering the speed, scale, power, and flexibility organizations need in a single platform,” said Rich Clayton, vice president of analytics product strategy, Oracle.  “Customers clearly understand the value, which is driving strong growth across the board – in our base, with new customers, and in utilization, which is the highest of any Oracle Platform as a Service offering.”

Oracle Delivers Most Comprehensive Cloud Analytics Platform

Oracle Analytics Cloud provides the industry’s most comprehensive cloud analytics in a single platform, including everything from self-service visualization and powerful inline data preparation to enterprise reporting, advanced analytics, and self-learning analytics that deliver proactive insights. With support for more than 50 data sources and an extensible, open framework, Oracle Analytics Cloud gives customers a complete, connected, collaborative platform that brings the power of data and analytics to every process, interaction, and decision. 

John Cronin, Group CIO at An Post, explained that Ireland’s postal service chose Oracle Analytics Cloud “to extend and integrate into our existing big data analytics. This modern, agile, platform has enabled us to readily externalize our existing analytics and share insights with key customers.”

As part of this release, Oracle introduced an innovative new service, Oracle Analytics Cloud Day by Day. It is the first enterprise analytic application delivering proactive analytics to mobile devices based on business updates and personal preferences, ensuring the right information is always available, without customers even having to ask for it. Oracle Analytics Cloud Day by Day is complemented by a native mobile application, Oracle Analytics Cloud Synopsis, which enables anyone to visually analyze files on their mobile devices and then combine those insights with business information in Oracle Analytics Cloud Day by Day. The Oracle Analytics Cloud Synopsis app is available for free to all mobile users from the App Store for iPhone and iPad, and Google Play™ Store.

“One of our goals is to help our customers take advantage of cloud analytics,” said Francisco Tisiot, principal consultant at Rittman Mead.  “Oracle Analytics Cloud provides complete and elastic business intelligence, and is customizable and manageable by customers, all in the Oracle Cloud.”

Dubai Duty Free is the first customer to upgrade to Oracle Retail Release 16, Oracle announced today. One of the largest airport retailers in the world, Dubai Duty Free provides customers with first-class service, excellent value, a wide range of quality products and a world-class shopping environment. Now employing almost 6,000 people, the brand has consistently raised the benchmark for airport retailing while welcoming more than 78 million shoppers in 2016.

In less than 8 months, Dubai Duty Free completed its upgrade of Oracle Retail Merchandising System, Price Management, Invoice Match, Sales Audit, Warehouse Management, Store Inventory Management and Retail Insights from Release 12 to Release 16. The upgrade project also included interfaces to e-commerce, the point-of-sale system, warehouse automation and the Oracle E-business suite.

The new functionality of Release 16 will increase user productivity through exception-based retailing, persona specific dashboards, operational efficiencies, and widespread mobility. Additionally, the new technology allows click and collect with accurate inventory visibility and best-in-class processes with Oracle Commerce and Oracle Retail.

"Oracle understands the Middle Eastern market and is constantly extending the breadth and depth of its applications to match the challenges of modern organizations in all industry sectors,” said Ramesh Cidambi, Chief Operating Officer, Dubai Duty Free. “Dubai Duty Free incorporates Oracle Retail solutions that reflect the retail expertise, knowledge, and understanding that we need as our business continues to grow.”

“Tata Consulting Services (TCS) partnered with my team and Oracle Retail to ensure the project was delivered on time and within budget. Dubai Duty Free established a Train the Trainer program and anointed a User Acceptance Team to ensure a smooth roll out across the enterprise,” said Cidambi. “Setting up an Oracle Customer Management Office for better turnaround time on Service Requests has helped in timely resolution of priority issues. TCS provided expertise, enthusiasm and a collaborative approach to the implementation. The implementation of Oracle Retail is one of the smoothest implementations of my retail career.”

“Airports are by definition the retail environment where speed matters most,” said Ray Carlin, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Oracle Retail. “To deploy Oracle Retail Release 16 in such rapid time reflects the pace at which technology disruption is changing the ways people shop and is an incredible achievement by Dubai Duty Free and TCS.”

About Dubai Duty Free

Founded in 1983, Dubai Duty Free recorded first-year sales of US$20 million and has grown into one of the biggest travel retail operator in the world with sales turnover of US$1.85 billion in 2016.

Now employing almost 6,000 people, the operation has consistently raised the benchmark for airport retailing and it continues to grow. Dubai Duty Free currently operates some 36,000 sqm of retail space at Dubai International Airport and 2,500 sqm at Al Maktoum International that will grow in line with the massive development plans of Dubai South, which ultimately cover some 80,000 sqm of retail. 

About Oracle Retail

Oracle provides retailers with a complete, open, and integrated suite of best-of-breed business applications, cloud services, and hardware that are engineered to work together and empower commerce. Leading fashion, grocery, and specialty retailers use Oracle solutions to anticipate market changes, simplify operations and inspire authentic brand interactions. For more information, visit our website at www.oracle.com/retail.

Oracle today announced the worldwide release of its Oracle Banking Payments solution. The offering was built from the ground up leveraging ISO 20022 and is designed to help banks compartmentalize payments messaging, message transformation and payment processing while providing high fidelity insight. Using the Oracle Banking Payments API, banks can also innovate within the Internet of Payments, collaboration with 3^rd parties or curate new business models in collaboration with Fintechs.

“As a core banking vendor we have been supporting payments for over two decades. We run payments for over 500 banks across 140 countries. In many instances our applications cater to a significant proportion of a country or a jurisdiction’s volumes, for example we enable over 20% of the inward and 22% of the outward real time settlements in India” said Chet Kamat, senior vice president, Oracle Financial Services. “With Oracle Banking Payments, financial institutions can improve straight through processing, support real-time and immediate payment settlement and reduce time-to-market while driving innovation.”

Digitization has brought banks to a payments arena tipping point where customers demand constant availability for real-time, frictionless payments. Grappling with increasing levels of operational complexities, banks have increasingly adopted siloed structures and multiple messaging standards leading to a disharmonized payment landscape. At the same time, new players are challenging incumbents by offering personalized products, exemplary efficiency and security. To remain competitive, financial institutions need to adopt a transformational approach that addresses the changing dynamics of the payments marketplace.

With Oracle Financial Services Analytical Applications (OFSAA), Oracle Banking Digital Experience, Oracle FLEXCUBE, Oracle Banking Platform and Oracle Financial Services Revenue management and Billing, today’s announcement of Oracle Banking Payments makes Oracle the most comprehensive solution provider for the payments industry.

To help organizations meet rapidly changing business demands, Oracle today announced significant expansions to Oracle Supply Chain Management (SCM) Cloud. Part of Oracle Cloud Applications Release 13, the latest release of Oracle SCM Cloud delivers a comprehensive, next-generation supply chain platform that enables organizations to embrace outside-in demand driven processes and capabilities without the complexities and constraints of traditional supply chain architectures. The new release includes a number of innovative solutions including: supplier collaboration, quality management, maintenance, sales and operations planning, demand management, and supply planning, as well as expansions across all existing solutions.

To successfully manage accelerating technology, business and industry changes, organizations must rethink traditional supply chain systems to make them connected, agile and customer-oriented. The latest release of Oracle SCM Cloud empowers organizations to meet these changing market needs and customer service requirements by supporting demand-driven, aligned and digitally connected business models. As a result, organizations can improve customer service and customer-direct channels, while facilitating increased margins, reduced inventory costs and minimized supply disruptions.

“Business leaders recognize the undeniable benefits of digitizing core business functions like the supply chain, yet many still struggle to maintain outdated supply chain systems that are designed for the problems of the past—not the challenges of the future,” said Jon S. Chorley, chief sustainability officer and group vice president of supply chain management product strategy at Oracle. “Oracle SCM Cloud is built from the ground up for the cloud in order to support current and future business challenges. These enhancements go broader and deeper, demonstrating our commitment to supply chain excellence, which includes delivering the visibility, insights and capabilities organizations need to successfully balance supply and demand across increasingly complex global supply chains.”

With the latest release of Oracle SCM Cloud, Oracle is significantly expanding the industry’s broadest cloud-based supply chain management suite. This release includes the introduction of six new applications and hundreds of new capabilities that support demand-driven business models with modern end-to-end supply chain best practices, as well as user experience enhancements, including infolets. The six new products included in the latest release of Oracle SCM Cloud are:

• Oracle Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) Cloud: Executes strategy consistently with enterprise-wide alignment and visibility for growth and profitability, helping organizations achieve business goals by quickly evaluating and acting on plans. Organizations can benefit from aggregate planning with social collaboration and S&OP process management by aligning sales and operations to enhance decision making using embedded analytics.
• Oracle Demand Management Cloud: Enables organizations to achieve business objectives by optimizing new product introductions, improving decision making and synchronizing cross-functional demand plans. Organizations can improve demand visibility, manage demand variability and accurately sense, predict and shape customer demand.
• Oracle Supply Planning Cloud: Adapts quickly to fluctuating demand with the ability to plan for multiple manufacturing and fulfillment strategies in real time, including planning global supply chain activities, monitoring and prioritizing problem areas, and evaluating and executing the actions that will have the greatest impact. Enables greater agility with a comprehensive Genealogy and Installed base system that tracks as-built details and is leveraged by Maintenance Cloud and the new Service Contracts Cloud.
• Oracle Supply Chain Collaboration Cloud: Supports increased business velocity by enabling organizations to plan, manage and collaborate with suppliers and contract manufacturers more efficiently. It enables organizations to benefit from integrated planning, orchestration, visibility and execution to better transact with trading partners, collaborate on order forecasts and manage exceptions, track production processes more effectively, and gain control over outsourced operations.
• Oracle Quality Management Cloud: Delivers exceptional product quality to protect organizations’ brands with the combination of collection, analysis and action. Enables organizations to drive best practices from issue to resolution by providing a comprehensive and integrated solution for auditable, closed-loop quality management.
• Oracle Maintenance Cloud: Enables improved return on capital and lower costs with the ability to better maintain enterprise assets. Helps organizations to achieve efficient and productive maintenance operations. Organizations can leverage complete integration of maintenance, supply chain and financial applications to transform asset maintenance from a complex and expensive process into one that can open up the ability to gain a competitive advantage.

In addition to these new products, existing Oracle SCM Cloud modules have been significantly enhanced. Highlights include:

• Information-Driven Navigation: All user functions are now accessible through role-specific dashboards and landing pages composed of analytic infolets that highlight issues and direct users to relevant actions.
• Inventory: Ability to source all requisitions from internal warehouses.
• Manufacturing: Full support of outside processing.
• Mobility: A new mobile application to collect and vote on product innovation ideas.
• Order Management: Integration with Oracle Configure, Price and Quote (CPQ) Cloud and the ability to use the SCM Configurator within CPQ.
• User Experience: Completely redesigned self-service procurement constructed around the familiar shopping cart experience.

Additional Information

For additional information on Oracle Supply Chain Management (SCM) Cloud, visit Facebook, Twitter or the Oracle SCM blog.