ORACLE INTRODUCES BI WITHOUT BARRIERS

Oracle Corp announced that it has consolidated traditionally separate, highly specialized business intelligence technologies into a single infrastructure for business information -- Oracle9i. The consolidation of disparate business intelligence technologies into a single, relational database and application server signals a major shift in the quality and widespread use of business critical information. Using the built-in business intelligence capabilities of Oracle9I Application Server, e-businesses can now easily make available personalized business information to anyone within the organization using any Internet-enabled device, including mobile phones and PDAs. E-business can also now make valuable business information available to partners and customers in an easier, more timely fashion, using Oracle9i.

The 25-year old business intelligence software market has traditionally consisted of complex software, requiring specialized staff to maintain and use it. A typical business intelligence solution can consist of more than a dozen different software pieces that work offline, isolated from each other and a company's transactional systems. While this complex, slow-to-deliver offline solution was sufficient in the past, businesses today need up-to-date information consolidated into a single source in order to make daily assessments and decisions. Oracle is making online business intelligence a reality by consolidating the best of its online analytic processing (OLAP), personalization and data extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) technology into the actual Oracle database versus maintaining the functionality in different, offline servers. Oracle already offers integrated business intelligence functionality in Oracle9i Application Server, which provides the enterprise portal and wireless functionality for widespread dissemination and access to business intelligence information.

The Oracle9i Database, with its built-in business intelligence features, will meet the demands of online business intelligence while also accommodating more data and more users at a faster rate. Oracle9i Database will help ensure

• The delivery of current, personalized information to thousands of simultaneous users, because information from data warehouses is used in combination with current data from operational systems such as Web sites, e-stores, call centers or other customer interaction centers;
• The ability to view and analyze comprehensive customer behavior by combining Web traffic data with data acquired from other applications, analyze usage patterns to enhance the visitor's Web site experience and enhance Web site performance through the most popular navigation paths;
• Better performance and scalability because all the data intensive processing and transformation is done within the core database;
• A removal of the trade-offs between the limitations of multidimensional OLAP (MOLAP) and Relational OLAP (ROLAP) implementations, because Oracle9i Database's embedded OLAP approach will allow users to realize the high performance of MOLAP with the scalability and manageability of ROLAP;
• Faster implementation, because there are fewer components to integrate;
• Lower cost, because resources do not have to be used for integrating and maintaining a complex configuration;
• Better manageability, because there are fewer parts to manage; and
• The ability to leverage existing IT skills, because standard Oracle database skills can be used.

Also announced is the coming release of Oracle Warehouse Builder 3i, which will automate the design and deployment of the single data store in Oracle9i Database, and Oracle BI Beans, which will allow developers to quickly add or build business intelligence functionality into new or existing applications. Oracle BI Beans will utilize Oracle9i Database's open access to OLAP functionality through a Java application programming interface (API), allowing component-based access to multidimensional analytic functionality within the database. Both of these business intelligence tools -- Oracle Warehouse Builder 3i and Oracle BI Beans -- are expected to be used with Oracle9i Database, and speed the design and development and use of online business intelligence applications.

"Business Intelligence has become far too critical to allow it to remain a set of specialized, niche technologies," said Michael Howard, Oracle vice president of Business-to-Business Integration and Data Warehouse Division. "Business intelligence should be available online, all the time, to everyone. Making business intelligence more mainstream was the goal for the latest developments in Oracle9i."

Availability and Pricing

Oracle9i Application Server, with its built-in business intelligence services, is currently available. Oracle9i Database, Oracle Warehouse Builder 3i and Oracle BI Beans are scheduled to be available in Spring 2001. Pricing will be announced upon availability.

About Oracle

Oracle Corporation provides the software that powers the Internet. For more information about Oracle, please call 650-506-7000.

Contact Kristin Kryway of Oracle Corporation, 650-506-6338 or kristin.kryway@oracle.com.