The Oracle Challenger Series today announced its return to Southern California for two events in early 2020. The third stop of the 2019-2020 series takes place at the Newport Beach Tennis Club on January 27 – February 2. The Indian Wells Tennis Garden hosts the final tournament on March 2-8.

Now in its third year, the Oracle Challenger Series helps up-and-coming American players secure both ranking points and prize money in the United States. The two American men and two American women who accumulate the most points over the course of the Challenger Series receive wild cards into the singles main draws at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. As part of the Oracle Challenger Series’ mission to grow the sport and make professional tennis events more accessible, each tournament is free and open to the public.

The Newport Beach and Indian Wells events will conclude the 2019-2020 Road to Indian Wells and are instrumental in determining which American players receive wild card berths at the 2020 BNP Paribas Open. At the halfway point of the Challenger Series, Houston champion Marcos Giron holds the top spot for the men. Usue Arconada is in first place for the women following an impressive showing in New Haven with finals appearances in both singles and doubles. Trailing just behind them are Tommy Paul, the men’s champion in New Haven, and CoCo Vandeweghe, the women’s runner-up in Houston.

The Newport Beach event has propelled its champions to career-defining seasons over the previous two years. Americans Taylor Fritz and Danielle Collins began their steady climb up the world rankings by capturing the titles at the 2018 inaugural event. Bianca Andreescu’s 2019 title marked the beginning of her meteoric rise to WTA stardom. Likewise, the Indian Wells event has featured some of the Challenger Series’ strongest player fields and produced champions Martin Klizan, Sara Errani, Kyle Edmund and Viktorija Golubic.

The Newport Beach tournament will also feature the Oracle Champions Cup which takes place on Saturday, February 1. Former World No. 1 and 2003 US Open Champion Andy Roddick; 10-time ATP Tour titlist and former World No. 4 James Blake; 2004 Olympic silver medalist and 6-time ATP Tour singles winner Mardy Fish; and 2005 US Open semifinalist Robby Ginepri headline the one-night tournament. The event consists of two one-set semifinals with the winners meeting in a one-set championship match.

Tickets to the Oracle Champions Cup go on-sale to the general public on Tuesday, December 17. Special VIP packages including play with the pros, special back-stage access and an exclusive player party are also available.

For more information about the Oracle Challenger Series visit oraclechallengerseries.com, and be sure to follow @OracleChallngrs on Twitter and @OracleChallengers on Instagram. To inquire about volunteer opportunities, including becoming a ball kid, please email oraclechallengerseries@desertchampions.com.

Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) today announced that Dr. Vishal Sikka, founder and CEO of the AI company Vianai Systems, has been named to Oracle’s Board of Directors.  Before starting Vianai, Vishal was a top executive at SAP and the CEO of Infosys.

“The digital transformation of an enterprise is enabled by the rapid adoption of modern cloud applications and technologies,” said Oracle CEO Safra Catz. “Vishal clearly understands how Oracle’s Gen2 Cloud Infrastructure, Autonomous Database and Applications come together in the Oracle Cloud to help our customers drive business value and adapt to change. I am very happy that he will be joining the Oracle Board.”

“For years, the Oracle Database has been the heartbeat and life-blood of every large and significant organization in the world,” said Dr. Vishal Sikka. “Today, Oracle is the only one of the big four cloud companies that offers both Enterprise Application Suites and Secure Infrastructure technologies in a single unified cloud. Oracle’s unique position in both applications and infrastructure paves the way for enormous innovation and growth in the times ahead. I am excited to have the opportunity to join the Oracle Board, and be part of this journey.”

“Vishal is one the world’s leading experts in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning,” said Oracle Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison. “These AI technologies are key foundational elements of the Oracle Cloud’s Autonomous Infrastructure and Intelligent Applications. Vishal’s expertise and experience makes him ideally suited to provide strategic vision and expert advice to our company and to our customers. He is a most welcome addition to the Oracle Board.”

Clinical trials are an essential gateway for getting new cures to market. However, many patients struggle to find the right trials that meet their unique medical requirements. To explore better ways to match patients with the right trials, Oracle Health Sciences is once again participating in The Opportunity Project (TOP) Technology Sprint: Creating the Future of Health.

This year’s entry joins Oracle technology with de-identified precision oncology open data sets from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Cancer Institute. The demo will highlight how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and customer experience solutions could be used to connect cancer patients with available clinical trials and experimental therapies.

“It is paramount that we collaborate with our peers within the federal government and technology communities to collectively evaluate what innovative opportunities exist and to explore the potential applications AI and machine learning can offer to fight deadly diseases such as cancer,” said Steve Rosenberg, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Health Sciences. “The opportunity to participate in the TOP challenge lets us apply Oracle solutions in new ways while also harnessing the learnings to benefit the lives of patients who need treatment in the future.”

Connecting Patients with Critical Trials

This year Oracle’s entry builds on the last technology sprint by leveraging open datasets to explore more deeply the applications of machine learning (ML) and AI. In addition, it demonstrates how features for prospective trial recruitment will work with appropriate identity protection.

Oracle’s submission uses a combination of Oracle Healthcare Foundation, Oracle CX Service, Oracle Policy Automation, Oracle Digital Assistant and Oracle Labs PGX: Parallel Graph AnalytiX solutions to create a demonstration that in the future might enable connecting patients and clinical staff through intuitive interfaces that provide data at the point of care. A graphical interface would allow physicians to track a patient’s care journey and would indicate which clinical trial options are available. It applies AI to standardize data from clinical trial requirement forms to specify eligibility criteria. The result can be a more simplified and personalized experience to help determine the best treatment for patients. Patients can also keep their identifying information from being shared, while allowing only their de-identified clinical data to be made available so they can receive information about new programs, clinical studies or therapies that may be of value to their care.

TOP is a 12-week technology development sprint that brings together technology developers, communities, and government to solve real-world problems using open data. TOP will host its Demo Day 2019 on December 10, 2019 at the U.S. Census Bureau in Suitland, MD.

Oracle today announced that it has been recognized in two newly released Gartner database reports. Oracle was ranked first in all four use cases of the 2019 Gartner “Critical Capabilities for Operational Database Management Systems” report¹ and was named a Leader in Gartner’s 2019 “Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems” report².

The self-driving Oracle Autonomous Database eliminates complexity, human error, and manual management to enable highest reliability, performance, and security at low cost.

“We believe Oracle’s placement in Gartner’s reports demonstrates our continued leadership in the database market and our commitment to innovation across our data management portfolio,” said Andrew Mendelsohn, Executive Vice President Database Server Technologies, Oracle. “Oracle continues to deliver unprecedented performance, reliability, security, and new cutting-edge technology via our cloud and on-premises offerings.”

Oracle believes it was positioned as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems for its continued innovation across its database management portfolio. The Oracle Autonomous Database is available in the cloud and will be available for on-premises deployment soon through its Oracle Generation 2 Cloud at Customer offering. Oracle Database 19c includes all the latest database innovations, and is the long term support release for Oracle Database 12c Release 2. Oracle also recently shipped the Oracle Exadata Database Machine X8M, which employs Intel® Optane DC persistent memory and innovative database RDMA technologies to deliver up to 20x better latency than All Flash storage arrays.

For the Gartner Operational Database Management Systems Critical Capabilities report, Oracle Database once again ranked No. 1 in all four core operational database use cases: traditional transactions, distributed variable data, event processing/data in motion, and augmented transactions.

Oracle further demonstrates its commitment in continuing to deliver a converged database that makes it easy for developers to build multi-model, data-driven applications. The Oracle Database now includes several different sharding capabilities, enhancing automated data distribution especially important for hybrid cloud or hyperscale requirements.

Oracle Autonomous Database builds on 40 years of experience supporting the world’s most demanding applications. The first-of-its-kind, Oracle Autonomous Database uses groundbreaking machine learning to enable self-driving, self-repairing, and self-securing capabilities with cloud economies of scale and elasticity. The complete automation of database and infrastructure operations like patching, tuning and upgrading, cuts administrative costs, and allows developers, business analysts, and data scientists to focus on getting more value from data and building new innovations.

Download a complimentary copy of Gartner’s 2019 Critical Capabilities for Operational Database Management Systems here.

Download a complimentary copy of Gartner’s 2019 Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems here.

[1] Source: Gartner, Critical Capabilities for Operational Database Management Systems, Donald Feinberg, Merv Adrian, Nick Heudecker, 25 November 2019.
[2] Source: Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems, Merv Adrian, Donald Feinberg, Nick Heudecker, 25 November 2019.

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.

The role of the enterprise database has evolved, and its importance has increased tremendously since Oracle pioneered the technology more than four decades ago. Today's databases perform near real-time processing for the most important enterprise workloads in the world, such as at telecoms and financial institutions. They handle petabytes of data, and that data comes in many forms.

At Oracle, we are bringing enterprise-grade database technology to the cloud and making it dramatically simpler and more cost effective. Now every user in enterprises of every size of can get the benefits of database technology that was previously restricted to mission-critical systems. The world’s most sophisticated database is now also the world’s simplest.

Automation, Security, and Dynamic Elasticity

Oracle Autonomous Database supports all kinds of workloads—transaction processing, data warehousing, and mixed workloads. And with Autonomous Database, most of it can be automated.

Databases—especially mission-critical enterprise databases—have traditionally required a lot of oversight and manual management. With Autonomous Database, we’ve automated most of these operational tasks. The Autonomous Database uses machine learning and automation to help eliminate complexity and human error, enabling higher reliability and more efficiency.

This automation also makes Autonomous Database much more secure than other databases because it constantly updates and patches itself in response to the latest threats. Additionally, Autonomous Database can automatically scale up or down, and you pay only for the compute and storage you use. It's a dramatically better database experience.

Bringing the Cloud to You

Despite the many benefits of the public cloud, we recognize that customers — particularly large enterprises — can’t move everything to the cloud. There are many reasons for that, including regulatory compliance concerns, latency issues, and application integration complexity. That's why at OpenWorld 2019 we announced Oracle Gen 2 Exadata Cloud at Customer.

The idea of Exadata Cloud at Customer is, if you can't come to the public cloud, we'll bring the cloud to you. We take the same hardware, software, and APIs that we have in our Exadata Cloud Service in the public cloud, and we deploy them in the customer's data center. The customer stays in control of all their data, and all of their security policies can remain the same, so it makes it a lot easier to adopt. Customers get all the benefits of cloud technology, but they’re also able to control the compliance and policies that had previously prevented them from going to the cloud.

Today we have Oracle Database available as a cloud service on Exadata inside customers’ data centers, and in 2020 we also plan to bring Autonomous Database to customers’ data centers.

Get the Best for Free

Another Autonomous Database option available to customers is Oracle Cloud Free Tier. The free tier can be used by anyone, but it is particularly interesting for developers, students, and small businesses. The free tier makes it super easy to learn Autonomous Database, or to use it to develop new applications.

A lot of clouds have a free tier, but you normally don’t get their best database. You normally get a lower-end commodity database. In the Oracle Cloud Free Tier, Oracle is providing the full Autonomous Database running on the Exadata platform—the same database and platform that is used by some of the biggest enterprises in the world.

With support for online transaction processing or data warehousing, public cloud or Cloud at Customer deployment, and a free tier for students and developers, Oracle Autonomous Database supports any kind of workload, deployment, or user with the simplest ease of use and the highest elasticity and security.

All the previously existing barriers to running databases in the cloud have now been eliminated.

Oracle today filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. challenging the legality of the system of enforcement and adjudication established by the U.S. Department of Labor and its Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) for discrimination claims against government contractors. The complaint alleges that this system was not authorized by Congress or the President and contravenes statutory authorities. 

Oracle’s complaint states that under the current system, claims against government contractors are not prosecuted in federal courts with a federal jury. Instead, the Department of Labor itself serves as investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and appellate court, usurping the role of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Department of Justice and the Courts.

“Oracle filed this case because it is being subjected to an unlawful enforcement action by the Labor Department utilizing a process with no statutory foundation whatsoever,” said Ken Glueck, executive vice president, Oracle.

Congress expressly declined to give agencies, such as EEOC, the broad and unfettered authority that the Department of Labor has assumed for itself to investigate, prosecute and adjudicate lawsuits entirely in-house. This system violates the U.S. Constitution and acts of Congress, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972.

Oracle recognizes the vital importance of a lawful system that investigates and prosecutes discrimination by employers, including government contractors. But the existing extra-statutory Department of Labor process results in arbitrary enforcement actions against the many employers who qualify as federal contractors, often with no evidentiary foundation and designed to do nothing more than extort concessions under a system lacking any semblance of due process. 

“It is apparent that neither Solicitor of Labor Kate O’Scannlain nor OFCCP Director Craig Leen is prepared to move back to a system where merits trump optics. Oracle brings this suit because the leadership at the Department of Labor has failed to restore balance to an unrestrained bureaucracy,” said Glueck.

“We believe strongly in maintaining a level playing field in the workplace for all of our employees and remain proud of our firm commitment to equality in our workforce. This lawsuit seeks to ensure that employers such as Oracle are likewise entitled to a level playing field when the government asserts claims of discrimination. That has not been the case with the OFCCP, resulting in enforcement actions that are meritless and defamatory to Oracle, its executives, and other government contractors,” said Glueck

In addition to today’s lawsuit, Oracle fully intends to defend itself against the Department of Labor’s baseless enforcement action set to begin trial on December 5. The government’s case rests on false allegations, cherry-picked statistics, and erroneous and radical theories of the law. The Labor Department’s nonsensical claims underscore the need for the federal courts to declare the Department of Labor’s current enforcement system unconstitutional.

Arab Jordan Investment Bank (AJIB) provides retail, corporate, and investment banking services in Jordan, Cyprus, and Qatar. Sending money between subsidiaries has historically relied on a network of correspondent banking relationships and third-party intermediaries, leading to slow and costly transactions for both AJIB and its customers. In addition, it required sharing customer information with third parties—a process involving strict regulatory requirements with occasional conflicts between different jurisdictions. AJIB aimed to reduce the costs and time required for cross-border payments, while making the entire process more secure and efficient.

In order to boost speed, security, and reliability of cross-border money transfers with distributed ledger technology, AJIB deployed Oracle Blockchain Platform in what has become the largest blockchain deployment in the Middle East.

Before using blockchain, money transfers between AJIB subsidiaries were processed by third-party intermediaries that charged fees at each stage of a cross-border transfer transaction. AJIB needed to reduce the costs and the time required for cross-border payments, while making the entire process more secure and efficient.

“Oracle delivers an enterprise-grade blockchain platform with high resiliency, scalability and security. The built-in features, such as identity management and data encryption, made it an ideal choice given our industry requirements and compliance needs,” said Ayman Qadoumi, Deputy General Manager, Information Technology and Security, Arab Jordan Investment Bank.

With Oracle Blockchain Platform, AJIB is now able to make the same transfers in real time without paying those fees. Senders and receivers can now track money transfers while the funds are in transit, providing transparency to both parties about the exact timing and amount of the transfer.

Watch the Video

Watch this video to learn how Arab Jordan Investment Bank is using Oracle Blockchain Platform to become a leader in banking innovation.

Read More Stories from Oracle Cloud

Arad Jordan Investment Bank is one of the thousands of innovative customers succeeding in the cloud. Read about others in Stories from Oracle Cloud: Business Successes. 

Data is at the core of successful smart city innovation, according to new research from Oracle and economic and urban research consultancy ESI ThoughtLab. The Building a Hyperconnected City study found that cities are drowning in data from advancements such as Internet of Things (IoT). The survey projected that there will be more than 30 billion connected devices generating data by 2020. The study notes that for cities to become truly ‘smart’, they must have a cloud infrastructure in place to extract, integrate, and analyze this data to glean the insights needed to enhance everything from citizen services to building projects.

The report surveyed 100 cities across the United States, APAC, EMEA and LATAM.

The hyper-connected multiplier effect

According to the study, the average return on investments in hyper-connected initiatives ranges from three - four percent. As cities become more interlinked, their ROI grows: cities just starting out realize a return of 1.8 percent for implementers and 2.6 percent for advancers, while hyper-connected leaders see a 5.0 percent boost. That can translate into enormous returns ranging from $19.6 million for implementers to $40.0 million for advancers and $83 million for hyper-connected leaders. 

Other key findings from the study include:

• AI, Blockchain and biometrics are increasingly pervasive: Cities are using these technologies in key urban areas, such as IT infrastructure and telecoms, mobility and transportation, payment and financial systems, and physical and digital security. City leaders need the right technology platforms and applications to implement and leverage these tools and capabilities.
• Cybersecurity requires careful planning and is expensive when not implemented properly: The study revealed that half of the 100 city leaders surveyed do not feel adequately prepared for cyberattacks.
• Smart initiatives are bolstering constituent satisfaction: While physical and digital security top the list of priorities, citizen engagement and satisfaction have risen as a top five goal. 33 percent of innovative leaders in North America have appointed Chief Citizen Experience Officers.

“The public sector, particularly at local level, is dealing with seismic technological, demographic and environmental shifts. Data is the rocket fuel for this transformation, and progressive cities are turning to cloud, data platforms, mobile applications and IoT as a way to scale and prepare for the future,” said Susan O’Connor, global director for Smart Cities, Oracle. “In contrast, not taking advantage of emerging technologies such as AI, Blockchain or virtual and augmented reality comes at a cost. Cities of the future need strategic, long-term investments in cloud data architecture, along with the right expertise to guide them through.”

Customer Commitment to Smarter Cities:

“As a data driven organization, we integrate, manage and use data to inform how we improve services for our constituents,” said Hamant Bharadia, assistant director of finance at the London Borough of Lambeth. “Oracle Cloud Applications for financial planning and payroll are an integral part of our digital strategy, setting us up for a modern way of working and engaging with our communities. They are an essential enabler for us to support innovation, improve public safety and realize our vision of making Lambeth a connected, inclusive place to thrive.” 

“Approximately 50% of Buenos Aires sidewalks are in poor condition, and we previously used spreadsheets to plan the routes for our crew to fix them,” said Alejandro Naon, chief of staff of planning of the undersecretariat of pedestrian ways, City of Buenos Aires. “Today, with Oracle CX Field Service Cloud, we can identify and fix the sidewalks exponentially faster because we receive images and information in real time. Our sidewalks are safer, our workers are more productive, and we recovered our Oracle technology investment in 18 months.”

“At the foundation of our smart government innovation is Oracle Analytics Cloud. It is both the heartbeat and hub for sharing information, enabling us to deliver data-driven citizen services and engagement with maximum impact,” said Chris Cruz, director and chief information officer, San Joaquin County. “Our entities throughout San Joaquin County, such as hospitals, law enforcement, transportation and public works, now partner more effectively and are better equipped to meet the health, social, safety and economic needs of our constituents.” 

Oracle's Smart City solutions transform the ways cities can harness and process the power of data through the integration of modern digital technologies and channels. The platform integrates technologies spanning cloud, digital outreach, omni-channel service, case management, mobility, social, IoT, Blockchain, and artificial intelligence while helping ensure comprehensive security and information privacy.

For more information, go to https://www.oracle.com/applications/customer-experience/industries/public-sector/

Oracle is expanding its Chicago Innovation Lab, empowering more organizations to explore new technologies and strategies to bolster their digital transformation efforts. Since its successful launch last year, the Lab has helped construction organizations explore and test solutions from Oracle and the larger construction ecosystem in a simulated worksite environment. Today, Oracle is planning for an extended facility and broadening the scope of the newly named Oracle Industries Innovation Lab to feature additional partners and technologies to solve complex business issues and accelerate customer success across more verticals.

“We are at an inflection point with technology as the digital and physical worlds continue to blur for our customers across all industries,” said Mike Sicilia, senior vice president and general manager, Global Business Units, Oracle. “This expanded Lab environment gives our customers and partners a place to co-innovate with tools and technologies that yield operational improvements and empowers them to use data to create new business opportunities and revenue streams. We’re coming together to help redefine the future for these industries.”

The Lab has already welcomed more than 650 visitors, including best-in-class technology partners, customers and industry thought leaders. There, they have worked together in a realistic worksite environment to test how leading-edge solutions such as connected devices, autonomous vehicles, drones, augmented reality, visualization, and artificial intelligence tools can positively impact the construction industry. Moving forward, the Lab will also feature simulated environments including Utility and Communication solutions.

Oracle Utilities will explore new concepts driving the future of energy. Lab demonstrations and real-world modeling will range from better managing loads on the grid with distributed energy resources, such as solar, wind and electric vehicles; to using artificial intelligence, IoT and digital-twin technologies to improve network operations and speed outage restoration; to optimizing connections with smart home devices to engage and serve customers, while bolstering the health of the grid with better demand planning. The Lab will also highlight how water, gas and electric utilities can leverage the latest technology to manage and enhance their construction efforts and minimize disruptions during site enhancements, maintenance and upgrades. 

Oracle Communications enables both mobile in-app and web-based digital engagement using contextual voice, HD video and screen sharing capabilities through its Oracle Live Experience Cloud. The Oracle Live Experience Cloud directly enables enterprises in the E&C industry to modernize customer experience and field service using enhanced digital engagement channels.

The use cases being demonstrated at the Lab will let customers simulate real-time collaboration on large construction models with massive amounts of data over a high speed, low latency 5G network. 

Oracle and the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) jointly announced today the creation of wild card linkages between major college tennis championships and the Oracle Pro Series. The champions and finalists from the Oracle ITA Masters, the ITA All-American Championships and the Oracle ITA National Fall Championships will be awarded wild card entries into Oracle Pro Series events beginning with the 2020 season.

The opportunity to earn wild card entries into Oracle Pro Series tournaments is available to college players from all five divisions (NCAA DI, DII, DIII, NAIA and Junior College). Singles and doubles champions from The All-American Championships and the Oracle ITA National Fall Championships as well as the Oracle ITA Masters singles champions will earn wild cards into Oracle Challenger level events. Singles and doubles finalists from the All-American Championships and the Oracle ITA National Fall Championships will earn wild cards into Oracle $25k tournaments. ITA Cup singles champions (from NCAA DII, DIII, NAIA and Junior College) will also earn wild card entries into Oracle $25K tournaments.

Eighteen individuals and eight doubles teams have already secured wild cards for Oracle Pro Series tournaments in 2020 following their play at the 2019 Oracle ITA Masters, 2019 ITA All-American Championships, 2019 ITA Cup, and 2019 Oracle ITA National Fall Championships. The list includes:

Oracle ITA Masters

• Men’s Singles Champion – Daniel Cukierman (USC)
• Men’s Singles Finalist – Keegan Smith (UCLA)
• Women’s Singles Champion – Ashley Lahey (Pepperdine)
• Women’s Singles Finalist – Jada Hart (UCLA)

Oracle ITA National Fall Championships

• Men’s Singles Champion – Yuya Ito (Texas)
• Men’s Singles Finalist – Damon Kesaris (Saint Mary’s)
• Women’s Singles Champion – Sara Daavettila (North Carolina)
• Women’s Singles Finalist – Anna Turati (Texas)
• Men’s Doubles Champions – Dominik Kellovsky/Matej Vocel (Oklahoma State)
• Men’s Doubles Finalists – Robert Cash/John McNally (Ohio State)
• Women’s Doubles Champions – Elysia Bolton/Jada Hart (UCLA)
• Women’s Doubles Finalists – Anna Rogers/Alana Smith (NC State)

ITA All-American Championships

• Men’s Singles Champion – Yuya Ito (Texas)
• Men’s Singles Finalist – Sam Riffice (Florida)
• Men’s Doubles Champions – Jack Lin/Jackie Tang (Columbia)
• Men’s Doubles Finalists – Gabriel Decamps/Juan Pablo Mazzuchi (UCF)
• Women’s Singles Champion – Ashley Lahey (Pepperdine)
• Women’s Singles Finalist – Alexa Graham (North Carolina)
• Women’s Doubles Champions – Jessie Gong/Samantha Martinelli (Yale)
• Women’s Doubles Finalists – Tenika McGiffin/Kaitlin Staines (Tennessee)

ITA Cup

• Men’s Division II Singles Champion – Alejandro Gallego (Barry)
• Men’s Division III Singles Champion – Boris Sorkin Tufts)
• Men’s NAIA Singles Champion – Jose Dugo (Georgia Gwinnett)
• Men’s Junior College Singles Champion – Oscar Gabriel Ortiz (Seward County)
• Women’s Division II Singles Champion – Berta Bonardi (West Florida)
• Women’s Division III Singles Champion – Justine Leong (Claremont-Mudd-Scripps)
• Women’s NAIA Singles Champion – Elyse Lavender (Brenau)
• Women’s Junior College Singles Champion – Tatiana Simova (ASA Miami)

“This is yet another exciting step forward for all of college tennis as we build upon our ever-growing partnership with Oracle,” said ITA Chief Executive Officer Timothy Russell. “We are forever grateful to our colleagues at Oracle for both their vision and execution of these fabulous opportunities.”

Oracle is partnering with InsideOut Sports & Entertainment, led by former World No. 1 and Hall of Famer Jim Courier and his business partner Jon Venison, to manage the Oracle Pro Series. InsideOut will work with the college players and their respective coaches to coordinate scheduling in respect to their participation in the Pro Series events.

The final schedule for the 2020 Oracle Pro Series will include more than 35 tournaments, most of which will be combined men’s and women’s events. Dates and locations are listed at https://oracleproseries.com/. Follow on social media through #OracleProSeries.

The expanding partnership between Oracle and the ITA builds upon their collaborative efforts to provide playing opportunities and their goal of raising the profile of college tennis and the sport in general. Oracle supports collegiate tennis through sponsorship of the ITA, including hosting marquee events throughout the year such as the Oracle ITA Masters and the Oracle ITA Fall Championships.

Through that partnership, the ITA has been able to showcase its top events to a national audience as the Oracle ITA Masters, ITA All-American Championships and Oracle ITA National Fall Championships singles finals have been broadcast live with rebroadcasts on the ESPN family of networks.

Despite all the hype around customer data platforms (CDPs), a new study conducted by Forrester Consulting and commissioned by Oracle found that brands are struggling to create a unified view of customers. The November 2019 study, “Getting Customer Data Management Right,” which includes insights from 337 marketing and advertising professionals in North America and Europe, found that brands want to unify customer data but face significant challenges in bringing different data types together. 

Brands Want to Centralize Customer Data

As consumers expect more and more personalized experiences, the ability to effectively leverage customer data is shifting from a “nice-to-have” to table stakes:

• 75% of marketing and advertising professionals believe the ability to “improve the experience of our customers” is a critical or important objective when it comes to the use of customer engagement data.
• 69% believe it is important to create a unified customer profile across channels and devices.
• 64% stated that they adopted a CDP to develop a single source of truth so they could understand customers better.

Unified Customer Profiles Lead to Better Business Results

Brands that effectively leverage unified customer profiles are more likely to experience revenue growth, increased profitability and higher customer lifetime values:

• Brands that use CDPs effectively are 2.5 times more likely to increase customer lifetime value.
• When asked about the benefits of unified data management, the top two benefits were increased specific functional effectiveness (e.g., advertising, marketing, or sales) and increased channel effectiveness (e.g., email, mobile, web, social media).

The Marketing and Advertising Opportunity

While marketing and advertising professionals understand the critical role unified customer profiles play in personalizing the customer experience, the majority of brands are not able to effectively use a wide variety of data types:

• 71% of marketing and advertising professionals say a unified customer profile is important or critical to personalization.
• Only 11% of brands can effectively use a wide variety of data types in a unified customer profile to personalize experiences, provide a consistent experience across channels, and generally improve customer lifetime value and other business outcomes.
• 69% expect to increase CDP investments at their organization over the next two years.

“A solid data foundation is the most fundamental ingredient to success in today’s Experience Economy, where consumers expect relevant, timely and consistent experiences,” said Rob Tarkoff, executive vice president and general manager, Oracle CX. “At Oracle we have been helping customers manage, secure and protect their data assets for more than 40 years, and this unique experience puts us in the perfect position to help brands leverage all their customer data – digital, marketing, sales, service, commerce, financial and supply chain – to make every customer interaction matter.” 

Read the full study here.

Outdoor and Fashion retailer and manufacturer, Cape Union Mart International Pty Ltd, Inc. has selected Oracle to modernize its retail operations. With the Oracle Retail Cloud, the company plans to fuel growth across all sales channels with better inventory visibility and more sophisticated merchandise assortments that keep shoppers coming back for more.

“This is a complex project, touching virtually every part of our business. The Oracle team has partnered with us from start to finish; building our trust and giving us an insight into what we can expect in the implementation of the transformational project – we look forward to working with them and rebuilding our retail IT landscape into a world class environment, taking Cape Union Mart to the next level,” said Grant De Waal-Dubla, Group IT Executive, Cape Union Mart.

Cape Union Mart strives to deliver what their customers need with the right product in the right store at the right time. Until now, the brand has managed its retail assortments with a talented team and well-defined process in excel spreadsheets. As Cape Union Mart continued to grow, they needed a better way to manage their operations. With Oracle Retail, the brand can fully embrace automated, systemized workflows driven by dashboards and end to end reporting with a common user interface. This will lead to more seamless fulfillment and accurate demand forecasts.

“By choosing Oracle, Cape Union Mart can focus on business objectives and results, not technology. As a cloud provider, we take great pride in building appropriate real-time integration across the Oracle portfolio so our customers can get the information and results they needed quickly – whether that’s moving existing inventory or anticipating next seasons fashion trends and ensuring they are available for customers,” said Mike Webster, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Retail.

Cape Union Mart International Pty Ltd will implement several solutions in the Oracle Retail modern platform including Oracle Retail Merchandising Cloud Service, Oracle Retail Allocation Cloud Service, Oracle Retail Pricing Cloud Services, Oracle Retail Invoice Matching Cloud Service, Oracle Retail Integration Cloud Services, Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial Planning Cloud Services, Oracle Retail Assortment and Item Planning Cloud Service, Oracle Retail Science Platform Cloud Services, Oracle Retail Demand Forecasting Cloud Service, Oracle Retail Store Inventory Operations Cloud Service, Oracle Middleware Cloud Services, Oracle Warehouse Management Cloud and Oracle Financials Cloud. Cape Union Mart has partnered with Oracle Retail Consulting for the implementation.

Oracle today announced that Oracle Cloud Applications has achieved Impact Level 4 (IL4) Provisional Authorization from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). With IL4, Oracle can now offer its software-as-a-service (SaaS) cloud suite to additional government agencies within the DoD community. Since the authorization was granted, the DoD has selected Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud to help transform its HR operations in support of 900,000 civilian employees.

All organizations need comprehensive and adaptable technology to stay ahead of changing business and technology demands. For federal government agencies in particular, it’s even more critical to have a reliable, highly secure solution to navigate time-sensitive workflows and make strategic mission decisions. To meet these demands, Oracle Cloud Applications enables customers to benefit from best-in-class functionality, robust security, high-end scalability, mission-critical performance, and strong integration capabilities.

“At Oracle, our focus is centered on our customers’ needs. For U.S. Federal and Department of Defense customers, they need best in class, agile, and secure software to run their operations – and we can deliver that,” said Mark Johnson, SVP, Oracle Public Sector. “With built-in support for Impact Level 4, the DoD community can now take advantage of Oracle Cloud Applications to break down silos, quickly and easily embrace the latest innovations, and improve user engagement, collaboration, and performance.”

“The Department of Defense awarded a contract to Oracle HCM Cloud to support its enterprise human resource portfolio. The award modernizes its existing civilian personnel business process functions to enable improved streamlined approaches in support of the workforce. The DoD's Defense Manpower Data Center is leading the implementation of the HCM Cloud, which replaces numerous legacy systems and is targeted for full deployment in mid 2020,” according to the DMDC Director, Michael Sorrento.

Oracle has been a long-standing strategic technology partner of the US government, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the first customer to use Oracle’s flagship database software 35 years ago. Today, more than 500 government organizations take advantage of Oracle’s industry-leading technologies and superior performance.

The declining bee population is not just a problem for honey lovers; it’s a threat to the global food supply.

Oracle announced a partnership with The World Bee Project CIC in 2018, offering the use of its cloud storage and AI analytics tools to support the organization’s goals and innovations such as its BeeMark honey certification.

The World Bee Project is the first private organization to launch a global honeybee monitoring initiative to inform and implement actions to improve pollinator habitats, create more sustainable ecosystems, and improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods by establishing a globally coordinated monitoring program for honeybees and eventually for key pollinator groups.

The World Bee Project Hive Network remotely collects data from varying environments through interconnected hives equipped with commercially available IoT sensors. The sensors combine colony-acoustics monitoring with other parameters such as brood temperature, humidity, hive weight, and apiary weather conditions. They also monitor and interpret the sound of a bee colony to assess colony behavior, strength, and health.

The World Bee Project Hive Network’s multiple local data sources provide a far richer view than any single data source to harness and enable global-scale computation to generate new insights into declining pollinator populations.

After the data has been validated by The World Bee Project database it can be fed into Oracle Cloud, which uses analytics tools including AI and data visualization to provide The World Bee Project with new insights into the relationship between bees and their varying environments. These new insights can be shared with smallholder farmers, scientists, researchers, governments, and other stakeholders.

“The partnership with Oracle will absolutely transform the scene as we can link AI with pollination and agricultural biodiversity,” said Sabiha Malik, founder and executive president of The World Bee Project CIC. “We have the potential to help transform the way the world grows food and to protect the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers, but we depend entirely on stakeholders such as banks, agritech, insurance companies, and governments to sponsor and invest in our work so that we can begin to step toward fulfilling our mission.”

Oracle will be offering cloud computing technology and analytics tools to The World Bee Project to enable it to process data in collaboration with its science partner, the University of Reading, to enable science-based evidence to emerge.

Oracle is currently looking at funding models to support the expansion of The World Bee Project Hive Network to ensure a truly global view of the health of bee populations.

Watch The World Bee Project Video to Learn More

Read More Stories from Oracle Cloud

The World Bee Project is one of the thousands of innovative customers succeeding in the cloud. Read about others in Stories from Oracle Cloud: Business Successes. 

Digital service providers are transforming their monetization systems to prepare for the upcoming demands of 5G and future digital services. Oracle Communications’ new cloud native deployment option for Billing and Revenue Management (BRM) addresses these demands by combining the features and extensibility of a proven, convergent charging system with the efficiency of cloud and DevOps agility.

Oracle Communications’ cloud native BRM deployment option provides a modern monetization solution to capitalize on the opportunities presented by today’s mobile, fixed and cable digital services. It supports any service, industry or partner-enabled business model and provides a foundation for 5G network slicing and edge monetization.

“As the telecommunications industry prepares itself to take advantage of 5G, architectural agility will be essential to monetize next-generation services quickly and efficiently,” added John Abraham, principal analyst, Analysys Mason. “With its cloud native compliant, microservices-based architecture framework, the latest version of Oracle’s Billing and Revenue Management solution is well positioned to accelerate CSPs ability to support emerging 5G-enabled use cases.“

Cloud native BRM enables internal IT teams to incorporate DevOps practices to more quickly design, test and deploy new services. Organizations can optimize their operations by seamlessly managing business growth with efficient scaling and simplified updates, and by taking advantage of deployment in any public or private cloud infrastructure environment. BRM further increases IT agility when deployed on Oracle’s next generation Cloud Infrastructure, which features autonomous capabilities, adaptive intelligence and machine learning cyber security.

“Service providers and enterprises are looking for agile solutions to quickly monetize 5G and IoT services,” said Jason Rutherford, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Communications. “Cloud native BRM deployed on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure allows our customers to operate more efficiently, react quickly to competition and to pioneer new price plans and business models that capitalize on the digital revolution.”

Find out more about Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management, with modern monetization capabilities for 5G and the connected digital world. 

To learn more about Oracle Communications industry solutions, visit: Oracle Communications, LinkedIn, or join the conversation at Twitter @OracleComms.

New York Burger set out to shake up the local food scene by bringing American style burgers and barbeque dishes to Madrid. Today, the fast growing chain is doing exactly that. To keep up with the pace of expansion while keeping customers happy, New York Burger has added Oracle MICROS Simphony Point of Sale (POS) System to its technology menu to seamlessly connect servers and the kitchen. With real-time order sharing, cooks can immediately start an order, reducing the time it takes orders to arrive to hungry diners. Since deploying the Oracle Cloud solution, the chain has realized a 50 percent decrease in customer wait-time across its five restaurants.

“As the business grew, we found our existing solution was not up to the challenge, and inefficiencies meant our customers were kept waiting,” said Pablo Colmenares, founder, New York Burger. “Oracle has definitely helped us to streamline our operations. It is simple and fast to use, and utilizing the product helped us become a smarter business. Oracle has a great global reputation, there’s a reason why the biggest brands in the world trust Oracle. Every strong tree needs strong roots and Oracle is our roots.”

Along with improving service efficiencies, Oracle MICROS Simphony POS System has helped New York Burger streamline menu management, gaining immediate data and reporting on their customers’ favorite menu items. These insights have been especially helpful as the restaurant chain has revamped its menu to better match customers’ preferences, removing items that were not popular and reducing food waste.  

New York Burger has also relied on Oracle’s solutions to further its green-friendly approach to operating its restaurants, enabling them to reduce waste and more closely align with its goal of being an environmentally-friendly restaurant. Oracle’s solution specifically helps management minimize excess costs, by reducing any unnecessary ingredient surplus.

“This innovative chain took a chance on bringing a new kind of cuisine to Madrid – to rave reviews. But today, the quality of the experience customers have at a restaurant must be in parallel with the quality of the food,” said Simon de Montfort Walker, senior vice president and general manager for Oracle Food and Beverage. “With Oracle, New York Burger is able to speed service and give servers more time with customers - delivering an unforgettable meal on both sides of the equation. And with better insights into tastes, trends and what’s selling well, New York Burger can reduce waste and conserve revenue while giving customers a menu that will keep them coming back again and again.”

Please view New York Burger’s video: New York Burger Delivers Joyful Food Sustainably with Oracle

I just got back from a press tour in New York, where the most common question I heard was: What's Oracle's competitive advantage in the cloud? I believe it's the completeness of our offering. Here's why.

The three main components of the cloud are the application, platform, and infrastructure layers. But most enterprises don't think about the cloud in terms of these silos. They take a single, holistic view of their problems and how to solve them.

Because we play in all layers of the cloud—and are continually adding integrations between the layers—we are in a unique position to help.

The application layer refers to software such as enterprise resource planning, human capital management, supply chain management, and customer engagement. These are core applications that enterprises rely on to run their businesses. Oracle is the established leader in this area, and we're continuing to innovate and differentiate by integrating artificial intelligence, blockchain, and other important new technologies into these applications.

These applications sit on the platform layer, which is powered by the Oracle Autonomous Database. We've taken our 40-plus years of expertise and combined it with advanced machine learning technologies to create the market's only self-driving and self-repairing database.

The platform layer is also where our analytics, security, and integration capabilities live. Analytics are helping businesses answer questions they couldn't answer before—and ask new questions they never would have thought of. And security, which used to be seen as an inhibitor to cloud adoption, is actually now a driver. Enterprises are saying, "Oracle's data center is going to be more secure than what we can manage on our own."

The application and platform layers rest upon Oracle's Generation 2 Cloud Infrastructure. Our compute, storage, and networking capabilities are purpose-built to run new types of workloads in a more secure and performant way than our competitors. We plan to open 20 Oracle Cloud data centers by the end of next year, which works out to one new data center every 23 days. And we're hiring 2,000 new people to support this infrastructure business.

Another differentiator for Oracle is our commitment to openness and interoperability in the cloud. As an example, we have a very strategic relationship with Microsoft. Joint customers can migrate to the cloud, build net new applications and even do things like run Microsoft analytics on top of an Oracle Database. We've also announced a collaboration with VMware to help customers run vSphere workloads in Oracle Cloud and to support Oracle software running on VMware.

We live in a hybrid and multicloud world. Oracle's comprehensive cloud offering, combined with our interoperability and multicloud support, helps customers achieve outcomes they simply couldn't with other vendors.

Watch Steve Daheb discuss the Oracle Cloud advantage on Cheddar and Yahoo Finance.

Leading French DSO GRDF has rolled out more than four million smart meters, powered by Oracle Meter Data Management (MDM). This milestone is part of GRDF’s larger smart meter initiative that is on track to reach 11 million households by 2023. With this program, GRDF can further realize its vision of Improving energy management and enhancing customer satisfaction. GRDF serves 90 percent of France’s gas market.

“The move to smart meters and implementation of new digitized functionalities are critical to delivering a natural gas network that fosters energy transition for our territories,” said Vincent PERTUIS, GRDF Director for Smart Gas Metering Program. “With Oracle MDM, GRDF will be able to use data to continue to reimagine how we serve customers, accelerate decarbonization, and increase the flexibility and reliability of our network.” 

Using Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM), GRDF is modernizing its natural gas transmission network to make it an effective tool for the energy transition. The result will be a fully digitized and connected network that will deliver benefits to customers and the environment by integrating renewable gas, enhancing safety, providing data to better manage gas supply, and linking with other networks to enhance flexibility and storage capacity. 

The smart meter roll-out will provide GRDF with massive amounts of interval meter data that will be essential to running a more efficient, cleaner network. Oracle Utilities MDM helps energy providers not only capture the data but securely optimise its use and management to support core operations and fuel innovation.

“GRDF’s smart grid modernization project is the largest in the world and hitting the four million smart meter marker represents tremendous progress,” said Francois Vazille, vice president of JAPAC & EMEA, Oracle Utilities. “Oracle MDM is a critical component to GRDF’s digital transformation journey and in opening up new opportunities for GRDF to serve its customers with clean, reliable energy.”

B Hotel Brasília, an independent luxury hotel located on Brasília’s spectacular Eixo Monumental stretch, has deployed an integrated suite of Oracle Hospitality and Oracle Food and Beverage cloud solutions to modernize its operations across the property and offer guests a stellar stay. 

“Our search for technology partners naturally led us to Oracle because of its industry recognition and the solution’s ability to meet our requirements,” said Ana Paula Ernesto, CEO, B Hotel Brasília. “Transitioning to cloud technology enables our staff to focus less on managing technology and more on curating the luxury experiences our guests demand. With a single view of operations across our hotel and dining facilities we can ensure guests are recognized across touchpoints while providing management with visibility into property performance.”  

Oracle Hospitality OPERA Property provides B Hotel Brasília, which offers 306 rooms and a rooftop bar and pool overlooking Brasília’s skyline, with a single view of every guest touchpoint from reservations and check-in to dining. The technology arms hotel personnel with detailed guest information allowing them to deliver more personalized services. In addition, OPERA enables hotel management to prepare and deliver a variety of reports for management including arrivals, departures, revenue and ratings – all from an easy-to-use dashboard view.

The Oracle Food and Beverage MICROS Simphony Cloud Point of Sale system for restaurants was implemented across the hotel’s dining venues including B Restaurant, Bar 16 and the Lobby Bar, offering wait staff the ability to take orders from mobile devices and deliver faster and more accurate food and beverage service to diners. 

“With our Oracle hospitality and food and beverage cloud solutions, we are uniquely positioned to serve as a strategic partner to both independent hotels and global chains that want to increase guest satisfaction, streamline operations and increase on-property revenues,” said Tanya Pratt, Associate Vice President, Oracle Hospitality. “With B Hotel Brasília’s digital transformation they have the power to create a competitive advantage with stellar service that can increase the property’s recognition globally.”

Watch the B Hotel Brasília video to learn how Oracle Hospitality Solutions are helping to drive the property’s growth.

Learn more about Oracle’s Hospitality Solutions here.

Myer, Australia’s largest department store chain, embarked on a digital transformation to deliver more compelling products to customers. Carrying many products across 61 stores, Myer offers a wide range of cosmetics, clothing, footwear, toys, and homewares. By embracing Oracle Retail, Myer transformed its end-to-end merchandise systems, inventory processes, and planning capabilities, resulting in reduced stock and improved sales, margin, and markdown reduction. Today, Myer is better able to deliver the right inventory to delight customers across its properties.

“I am optimistic about the ability of our Oracle Merchandise Planning tools to improve the efficiency of our buying teams and to deliver a more profitable, more localised product range for our customers,” said Allan Winstanley, Chief Merchandise Officer, Myer.

The project was a business-led initiative supported by IT. The team established clear goals and expectations to achieve immediate business benefits and support long-term growth objectives. Myer built a solid foundation with Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial Planning and Oracle Retail Size Profile Optimization with support from Tata Consulting Services (TCS), a Platinum and Cloud Elite level member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN).

Phase one of the implementations delivered immediate results with a stock reduction in time for holiday planning. In phase two, a cross-functional solution development team adopted an agile implementation methodology. The team worked in three weeks sprints to deliver regular solution functionality for seasonal strategies, item planning, clustering, option planning, and assortment planning from Oracle Retail Planning and Optimization. This approach allowed Myer to enjoy accelerated benefits and the project paid for itself.

“The project was delivered across various teams, including Merchandise, IT and Tata Consulting Services (TCS), where we transitioned from waterfall to an agile project delivery approach, which ensured the success of the project,” said Troy Smith, Chief Information Officer, Myer.

“Automate and simplify. We always encourage our customers to embrace these attributes and focus on operational excellence,” said Mike Webster, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Retail. “By establishing a strong foundation, Myer can pivot to the customer and localize the assortment based on store demographics, climate, and other store attributes.”

The Myer Oracle project received multiple awards including the 2018 ACS Gold Disruptor Award, 2018-2019TCS APAC 4.0 EXCEL ERATE Best Project Embracing Business 4.0, and the 2017- 2018 Myer inspirational Team Award.