Oracle 2007 Annual Report Download - page 14

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Table of Contents
manages our business relationships with a large, broad-based network of companies, including independent software
vendors, system integrators and resellers who deliver innovative solutions and services based upon our products. By
offering our partners’ access to our premier products, educational information, technical services, marketing and
sales support, the Oracle PartnerNetwork program extends our market reach by providing our partners with the
resources they need to be successful in delivering solutions to customers globally.
International Markets
We sell our products and provide services globally. Our geographic coverage allows us to draw on business and
technical expertise from a global workforce, provides stability to our operations and revenue streams to offset
geography-specific economic trends and offers us an opportunity to take advantage of new markets for our products.
A summary of our domestic and international revenues and long-lived assets is set forth in Note 13 of Notes to
Consolidated Financial Statements.
Seasonality and Cyclicality
Our quarterly results reflect distinct seasonality in the sale of our products and services, as our revenues are typically
highest in our fourth fiscal quarter and lowest in our first fiscal quarter. General economic conditions also have an
impact on our business and financial results. The markets in which we sell our products and services have, at times,
experienced weak economic conditions that have negatively affected our revenues. See “Selected Quarterly Financial
Data” in Item 7 of this Annual Report for a more complete description of the seasonality and cyclicality of our
revenues and expenses.
Customers
Our customer base consists of a significant number of businesses of many sizes and industries, government agencies,
educational institutions and resellers. No single customer accounted for 10% or more of revenues in fiscal 2008, 2007
or 2006.
Competition
The enterprise software industry is highly fragmented, intensely competitive and evolving rapidly. We compete in
various segments of this industry including, but not limited to:
• database software;
• middleware (including application server, business intelligence, application integration, content management,
portal server and identity management);
• collaboration;
• development tools;
• enterprise applications;
• software as a service;
• hosted and On Demand solutions;
• operating systems;
• virtualization software; and
• consulting/systems integration.
Total cost of ownership, performance, scalability, functionality, ease of use, open standards-compliance, product
reliability, Service-Oriented Architecture, security and quality of technical support are key competitive factors in
each of the areas in which we compete. Our customers are also demanding less complexity and lower cost in the
implementation, sourcing, integration and ongoing maintenance of their enterprise software, which has led
increasingly to our product offerings (database, middleware and applications) being viewed as a “stack” of software
designed to work together.
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Source: ORACLE CORP, 10-K, July 02, 2008 Powered by Morningstar® Document Research℠