GOVERNMENT

Continuing its strategy to reduce the cost and complexity of building and deploying business intelligence (BI) solutions, Oracle today introduced Oracle Business Intelligence 10g. Oracle Business Intelligence 10g is a comprehensive, standalone product designed to address the entire spectrum of analytical requirements facing businesses including information access, analysis and reporting, data integration and management. "Oracle provides a full spectrum of operational, tactical and strategic, reporting and analysis software with both historical analysis and predictive functionality," said Henry Morris, group vice president for Applications and Information Access software research, IDC. "Supporting all steps of the decision-centric BI model, Oracle is well positioned to enable decision process automation." Oracle further simplifies complex BI systems Building a traditional BI solution typically requires companies to undertake the time consuming and costly approach of purchasing and integrating multiple tools from various vendors. Oracle Business Intelligence 10g removes the headache of piecing together point solutions by delivering a comprehensive product. Oracle Business Intelligence 10g includes the following integrated components: * Oracle Discoverer -- query, reporting and analysis with dashboard features; * Oracle Spreadsheet Add-In -- direct access to Oracle OLAP from within Microsoft Excel spreadsheets; * Oracle Warehouse Builder -- robust data quality and ETL functionality; and, * Oracle BI Beans -- custom BI application development. Oracle Discoverer provides access to both relational (SQL) and online analytical processing (OLAP) data within a single reporting environment, accomplishing tasks that typically require two tools to perform. The product also includes improved reporting and publishing functionality as well as new customization capabilities that enable users to personalize their reporting views. A key component of the new product is Oracle Spreadsheet Add-In, which is designed to assist customers that rely heavily on spreadsheets. With the Oracle Spreadsheet Add-In, end-users can query, display and navigate Oracle OLAP data directly from within Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. All data and calculations are centrally stored in the Oracle Database. As a result, all analysis is performed directly against the database allowing the users to benefit from the performance and security features of the database, while ensuring that the analysis performed takes advantage of the very latest information. "A few years back, we set into motion a plan to simplify complex BI environments," said Ray Roccaforte, vice president of Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing, Oracle Corporation. "Initially, we focused on eliminating the need for customers to acquire multiple, specialized data mining, OLAP and statistical databases for their BI initiatives by consolidating that functionality directly into the Oracle Database. We've now extended that philosophy to BI tools by combining all of the necessary tools in a single product for customers to use for their BI needs." Beta Customers Leverage the Power of Oracle Business Intelligence Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) is participating in the Oracle Business Intelligence beta program. BMI is an American performing rights organization that represents songwriters, composers and music publishers in all genres of music. The non-profit company is using Oracle Discoverer to assist senior management in decision making regarding managing the millions of songs within the BMI repertoire. "At BMI, our goal is to transform data into high value information," said Camellia Petty, assistant vice president of Applications Development, BMI. "Oracle Business Intelligence 10g brings this goal closer to reality. Specifically, our BI end-users will be able to more easily access and share information as needed to meet internal and external business needs." R. L. Polk & Co., the premier provider of automotive information and marketing solutions, is also benefiting from Oracle Business Intelligence 10g. Polk collects and interprets global data, and provides extensive automotive business expertise to help customers understand their market position, identify trends, build brand loyalty, conquest new business and gain a competitive advantage. The firm is using Oracle Discoverer to not only gain greater insight about its data, but to improve the reporting experience for its end users and reduce the daily impact of reporting on its IT systems. "Oracle Discoverer capabilities such as enhanced printing and publishing, will greatly speed up our end-users time to browse, print and customize reports as well as give them greater control," said Matt Topper, applications architect, R. L. Polk & Co. "Additionally, the ability to share scheduled reports will ease the strain on our Oracle Database and allow users to pull content much faster -- rather than hitting the database multiple times for the same data." Product Availability Previously, Oracle Business Intelligence tools were available only with Oracle Application Server. While BI tools will continue to be included with Oracle Application Server 10g Enterprise Edition, customers will have the option of purchasing Oracle Business Intelligence 10g as a standalone product. With this new release, Oracle is making it easier for customers to purchase and deploy enterprise-class BI solutions. Oracle Business Intelligence 10g is scheduled to be generally available in the first quarter of 2005. For more information about Oracle Business Intelligence 10g, visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com/bi .