Oracle 2006 Annual Report Download - page 10

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Table of Contents
transportation and human resources. Our ERP applications combine business functionality with innovative
technologies, such as workflow and self-service applications, to enable companies to lower the cost of their
business operations by providing their customers, suppliers and employees with self-service internet access to
both transaction processing and critical business information. Our ERP applications are available in multiple
languages and currencies, enabling companies to support both global and local business practices and legal
requirements.
Industry Applications
Our applications can be tailored to offer customers a variety of industry-specific solutions. As part of our
strategy, we strive to ensure that our applications portfolio addresses the major industry-influenced
technology challenges of customers in key industries. With our acquisition of Siebel, we gained expertise in
the vertical markets in which Siebel offered industry solutions. We have also expanded our offerings in a
number of other key industries we view as strategic to our future growth, most notably in retail with our
acquisitions of Retek, Inc. and several other companies; in banking and financial institutions with our
acquisition of i-flex solutions limited; and in telecommunications with our acquisitions of Portal Software,
Inc. and MetaSolv, Inc. These acquired industry applications are in addition to industry applications we
developed for healthcare, life sciences, manufacturing, education, professional services, public sector and
utilities.
New software license revenues from applications software represented 29%, 27% and 19% of new software
license revenues in fiscal 2007, 2006 and 2005, respectively.
Applications Unlimited
In fiscal 2006, we announced we would continue to invest in enhancements to our current Oracle E-Business
Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, JD Edwards World and Siebel applications products
beyond the delivery of Oracle Fusion Applications (described below). In January 2007, we delivered five new
releases of these existing product lines, incorporating new products and customer-driven enhancements in
areas such as global support, localization, middleware, and analytics. With the Applications Unlimited
program, customers will not be required to migrate to Oracle Fusion Applications and may choose to stay
with their current product lines with dedicated development and support teams.
Fusion Applications
Oracle Fusion Applications, currently in development, represent the next generation of Oracle Applications,
based on a service-oriented platform, built on open industry standards, extendable by customers and partners
and interoperable with third party and existing installations. Fusion applications are being designed to
leverage the best functionality and combine the best features, flows and usability traits of our legacy and
acquired application products into one product line. We believe the resulting suite of applications will deliver
a superior ownership experience through improved usability, adaptive business process automation, built-in
business intelligence and industry-specific capabilities.
Software License Updates and Product Support
We seek to protect and enhance our customers’ current investments in Oracle technology and applications by
offering lifetime support, product enhancements and upgrades. Software license updates provide customers
with rights to unspecified software product upgrades and maintenance releases and patches released during
the term of the support period. Product support includes internet and telephone access to technical support
personnel located in our global support centers, as well as internet access to technical content. Software
license updates and product support are generally priced as a percentage of the new software license fees.
Substantially all of our customers purchase software license updates and product support when they acquire
new software licenses. In addition, substantially all of our customers renew their software license updates and
product support contracts annually.
Unbreakable Linux Support
During fiscal 2007, we introduced a program to support the Linux open source operating system for our
customers’ IT platforms. Oracle Unbreakable Linux, a support program that provides enterprises with
industry-leading global
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Source: ORACLE CORP, 10-K, June 29, 2007 Powered by Morningstar® Document Research℠