Oracle News & Articles

Last week we saw a considerable amount of movement in the document management software industry, not the least of which was the closure of the Xerox –ACS deal. The wheeling-and-dealing continues this week with the acquisition of AmberPoint by Oracle while AIIM and Gartner get back into gear with some research published recently.

Underlining what it says is its commitment to open source communities and developers, Oracle (news, site) has just announced the release of a new enterprise pack consisting of a number of certified plug-ins that enable developers to build Java EE and Web Services applications for the Oracle Fusion Middleware platform.

The new Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse supports development with technologies including Database, Java SE, Java EE, Web Services, XML and the Spring Framework, and comes with a new feature called AppXRay, which allows Java developers to work in team settings and reduces run time debugging and code quality.

The bottom line, Oracle says, is that this new pack will provide for shorter, faster release cycles that better keep pace with the underlying open source Eclipse platform, or more simply put -- higher quality development in less time.

And the benefits? There are four main ones including:

• Enables WebLogic developers to combine their expertise in Eclipse with the capabilities of Oracle Fusion Middleware.
• It is enterprise ready and includes capabilities that enable the development, assembly, build, deployment, debugging and testing of Java SE, Java EE, Web Service, ORM and Spring applications.
• It plugs into your existing Eclipse app, preserving configuration and customization work.
• Supports multiple platform revisions.

This new enterprise pack is available already, but if you want to find out more you can check out this introductory video, or download it from the Oracle website.

Metalogix (news, site) knows the inner workings of SharePoint. And they like to help their customers work better and smarter with the platform, like helping them migrate data from other content management systems. Their latest Migration Manager works for Oracle Content Server.

Only half way through January and already the global document management space is throwing up some interesting, breaking news. This week, we have news on another DoD certification, a case management project, BPM upgrade and data security improvements.

Oracle (news, site) has announced that it has received regulatory approval from the European Commission for its acquisition of Sun Microsystems (news, site). The final hurdle -- unconditional approval from China and Russia -- is expected soon, after which the deal will be finally closed.

The deal was originally announced last April when Oracle and Sun finalized a financial package that included US$ 9.50 per share in cash. The transaction was valued at approximately US$ 7.4 billion. At the time Oracle said the deal would give clients long term strategic advantages as it would give them effective ownership of Java and Solaris.

Important across the entire software industry, for Oracle it’s something of a must. Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle’s fastest growing business, is built on top of Sun’s Java language and software. Oracle said the deal would result in continued innovation and investment in Java technology for the benefit of customers and the Java community.

The Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database. With the acquisition of Sun, Oracle can optimize the Oracle database for some of the, high-end features of Solaris.

The company will host an all-day live event for customers, partners, press and analysts on January 27th, 2010 at 9:00 AM Pacific time, at its headquarters in Redwood Shores, California. Stay tuned for more details and analysis of the deal and what it means for content management.

IBM (news, site) has announced that it has signed a definitive agreement for the acquisition of information management and analytics provider NICS. The financial details of the deal were not released.

In its recent research, CMS Watch (news, site) found that enterprise search buyers are increasingly turning to specialized search vendors, as they struggle to find the right solution.

CMS Watch's Search & Information Access subscription service shows specialized focus in specific environments (Microsoft, SAP, Oracle) or verticals (e.g. Recommind in legal sector).

While evaluating 23 enterprise search vendors (10- to 18-page comparative evaluations per each), the researchers also found that:

• Despite improvements in SharePoint search, Microsoft-focused organizations are still considering other alternatives (Coveo, SurfRay or ISYS).
• Rapidly growing repositories are making enterprise search harder.
• Larger vendors struggle to keep up with specialized search vendors (Sinequa, dtSearch and Vivisimo), who are quickly releasing connectors to various repositories.

The updated Search & Information Access report also looks into FAST, SharePoint search in 2010, Autonomy’s IDOL platform, open source Apache Lucene and Solar, and offers an updated industry "cross-check" chart with 2010 product developments and vendor changes.

You can either get a free sample or buy the full report here.

Oracle (news, site) has gone beyond their regular Governance, Risk and Compliance Suite with the release of a new platform and updated Enterprise GRC Controls. The tools aim to complete the cycle by providing integration, automation and the consolidation of activities under one big umbrella.

Content is everywhere, and it is not cheap to manage it. Open Text (news, site) says it wants to lower the costs by connecting transactional data with business content behind each transaction through one app.

The new Open Text Content Access for Oracle application provides a single point of access to data for Oracle E-Business Suite users. Oracle E-Business Suite is a set of enterprise applications dealing mainly with ERP, lifecycle management and CRM.

The content access app works with both Oracle and non-Oracle content and allows users to link structured data in Oracle transactions with business content (electronic and paper assets, such as e-mail and contracts) managed in Open Text Enterprise CMS suite of products, while also covering the GRC angle.

Usually, content needs to be re-used across multiple applications, even though some of it is tied to a specific one (ERP, CRM, etc.). This is when Open Text’s new app gives a way of sharing business content across different applications, while managing access, retention, audit history, compliance, risk and other document and records management related activities.

As a side note: Oracle and Open Text’s relationship goes as far back as 10 years, and OTEX says it plans to continue its ECM technologies development using Oracle Fusion middleware.

Demand for document management and record management software is set to grow by over 7% every year for the next five years in the Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) region, according to new research by IT market research company IDC (news, site).

We always look to the analysts to help us narrow down our selection of vendors for things like enterprise content management. We recently had a look at Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management. Now we look to Forrester (news, site), who has released their Q4 Wave for Enterprise Content Management Suites.

Due to a highly volatile marketplace, Gartner (news, site) specifically advises that you avoid comparing vendor placement in prior years, but it's still exciting to see who made the cut in the Enterprise CMS Magic Quadrant this time around.

Leaders include Oracle, IBM, Open Text and Microsoft, while players like Autonomy, Xerox and Hyland Software sit in the other three brackets. Observe:

TACTIC is a digital asset management (DAM) software system from Toronto-based Southpaw Technology (news, site). The software company cut its teeth providing asset management solutions for the entertainment industry -- specifically game developers and film production firms. With their newly announced support for Oracle's database, the Southpaw team is betting that the heavy demands that media and entertainment clients put on a DAM platform will translate into a robust solution for the broader Enterprise CMS market as well.

Still only halfway through Oracle’s OpenWorld conference in San Francisco and the enterprise giant has made a number of announcements about the future developments with the company. In particular, the decision to integrate business applications with the document management component of its Enterprise CMS platform caught our attention.

What Oracle (news, site) hopes to give application users with its new Enterprise Application Documents solution is more efficient business processes that until now have been curtailed by the inability of users to get a full 360 view of what documentation is available in the enterprise content management system.

When IBM (news, site) announced that they had come to an agreement on the terms of a deal that would see IBM buy out predictive analytics company SPSS for US$ 1.2 billion, some commentators suggested that there was still time for a competing bid.

However, at the close of business last Friday, SPSS announced that it had called a special meeting of shareholders for October 2, for what will be a definitive vote on the US$ 50 a share deal.