Oracle introduced Oracle Global Trade Management and Oracle Transportation Management 6.1 on Jan. 11. Both built on the same platform, Oracle Transportation Management helps shippers and logistic service providers track their transportation requirements and environmental impact, while Oracle Global Trade Management provides the means for companies to track cross-border transactions and keep in compliance with various regulations. Oracle is coming off a strong last quarter of 2009 financially, but some analysts have wondered whether the company can sustain its momentum throughout 2010.
Oracle rolled out Oracle Global Trade Management and Oracle Transportation
Management 6.1, two platforms designed to help enterprises manage trade
compliance and shipping, on Jan. 11.
Oracle Transportation Management 6.1 consolidates onto one platform the
ability to manage trade compliance and transportation requirements, and helps
shippers and logistic service providers both monitor their environmental
impact-through the ability to measure and monitor details such as carbon
dioxide emissions and fuel consumption-and improve their efficiency.
The platform also allows fleet dispatchers to communicate in real time with
drivers, view data about shipments and automate shipment monitoring.
"Shippers and logistic service providers face a myriad of challenges as
they try to maximize efficiencies to lower operational costs and reduce their
environmental impact," Derek Gittoes, vice president of Oracle's Logistics
Product Strategy, said in a Jan. 11 statement. "By enabling companies to
manage their global trade and transportation requirements within one central
platform, our customers are better equipped to overcome these challenges."
Meanwhile, Oracle Global Trade Management provides a centralized way for
companies to keep track of cross-boarder transactions, including the management
of activities related to import and export compliance, in addition to other
regulatory policies. It is built on the same platform as Oracle Transportation
Management.
The platform allows companies to automate their trade compliance across
supply chains, centralize product data necessary for trade, provide a central
classification repository for products, implement restricted party and sanction
screening, and apply trade controls to any type of transaction.
Oracle heads into 2010 in a strong position. On Dec. 17, the company closed
out the year by reporting quarterly profits above Wall Street expectations,
with revenues of $5.86 billion and a net income of $1.46 billion. Sales of new
software licenses had risen 2 percent year over year, versus the company's
prediction from the previous quarter that sales of new licenses would either be
flat or down.
However, some analysts have expressed skepticism that Oracle can maintain
that sort of growth pattern heading into 2010.
"Experts believe the technology value proposition for additional
modules like order management, talent model, etc. are not going to drive sales
as much as Oracle would like us to believe," Laxmi Poruri, an analyst at
Primary Global Research, wrote in a Dec. 2009 e-mail to eWEEK, "unless
there is a more significant turnaround than what we are seeing in terms of
total IT [spending]."
In any case, Oracle in 2010 can rely on a product pipeline left wide open in
2009, despite a massive global recession that forced many IT companies into a
semblance of retreat. In addition to offering end-to-end and closed-loop
solutions to organizations' needs, all the better to push its brand further
into the enterprise, Oracle also introduced upgrades to its platforms such as
Middleware 11g, which allows for increased operational insight and automation
of an enterprise's middleware stack.
Oracle's 2010 will also likely be drastically affected by its deal to
acquire Sun Microsystems, originally announced in April 2009. Once the $7.4 billion
acquisition is complete, Oracle will be able to more fully integrate Java and
Solaris into its products.
Ultimately, Oracle seems to be moving to challenge IBM
in the systems arena.
"We have a deep interest in the systems business," Oracle CEO
Larry Ellison told an audience at the Churchill Club, in San
Jose, Calif., in September.
"We've already beaten IBM in software.
Now we want to beat them in systems."
Nicholas Kolakowski is a staff editor at eWEEK, covering Microsoft and other companies in the enterprise space, as well as evolving technology such as tablet PCs. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Playboy, WebMD, AARP the Magazine, AutoWeek, Washington City Paper, Trader Monthly, and Private Air. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Email
Print
