Oracle Partners Embrace Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA)

    COLLABORATE 2008, DENVER, April 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --

    -- Since the launch of the Oracle Application Integration Architecture
       (AIA) last April, Oracle's partner ecosystem has embraced Oracle's pre-
       built integration products and stepped forward to deploy and extend
       them for specific customers. The combination of pre-built integration
       products from Oracle and expert services from partners provides quick
       return-on-investment and better business value by helping customers to
       reduce the cost and risk associated with typical custom, one-off
       integrations.
    -- Oracle Application Integration Architecture delivers business process-
       based integrations across Oracle, third-party and custom applications.
       Oracle AIA provides pre-built, standards-based, sustainable
       integrations that connect applications together and can generate
       significant cost savings for customers.
    -- Major system integrators (SIs) are making significant investments in
       AIA by joining co-development initiatives and creating AIA Centers of
       Excellence to deliver more cost-effective services to joint customers.
       Oracle Application Integration Architecture also includes Foundation
       Pack, providing a jump-start for partners or customers to develop their
       own integrations using Oracle's enterprise objects and services and
       programming methodology.
    -- Through the Oracle Application Integration Architecture for Partners
       program, ISVs are leveraging the AIA framework to integrate their
       applications to the Oracle portfolio of applications. Qualified
       partners pre-build integrations to AIA standards. Oracle then reviews
       and validates that the partner integration meets required standards.
       The validation gives customers confidence that the pre-built
       integration has been tested, meets AIA standards and operates and
       performs as designed.


    Partners Step Up
    -- Demonstrating their intention to adopt and leverage AIA as the
       foundation for their Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) initiatives,
       Infosys, a leading system integrator, today announced investment in an
       AIA Center of Excellence to showcase proof-of-concepts and speed the
       delivery of best-practice, cost-effective services to joint customers.
    -- In addition, Oracle and its SI partners are leveraging their combined
       industry expertise and implementation experience in new AIA co-
       development initiatives, including:
       -- Satyam: Enterprise Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) business
          process integrating Oracle's Agile PLM and the Oracle E-Business
          Suite.
       -- Infosys: Distributor Price Protection Business Process for the High
          Technology Industry.
       -- Reply.it: Order to cash business process integrating Oracle's Siebel
          CRM and the Oracle(R) E-Business Suite.

Leveraging the Oracle Application Integration Architecture, Certified and Certified Advantage Partners in Oracle Partner Network can develop business services that can be plugged into Oracle Process Integration Packs, which reflect proven industry best practices.

Acxiom, an independent software company that offers customer data management and enrichment solutions, is leveraging Oracle Application Integration Architecture to provide sustainable and flexible integration to Oracle Customer Master Data Management (MDM) products. This will allow joint customers to enrich and validate their customer's profiles cost effectively.

    Supporting Quotes:
    -- "In today's competitive marketplace, companies must quickly adapt and
       evolve to changing business needs -- and Oracle understands the
       importance that our partner ecosystem plays in providing end-to-end
       business solutions to our customers to meet these objectives," said
       Jose Lazares, Oracle Vice President, Application Integration
       Architecture Development. "Through our AIA initiatives, we are enabling
       our valued partner ecosystem to work collaboratively with Oracle to
       accelerate the delivery of composite business processes on a flexible,
       service-oriented architecture. This allows our customers to rapidly
       implement critical business processes today -- while paving the way for
       their strategic long-term business transformation plans."
    -- "Our joint customers will benefit from Oracle Application Integration
       Architecture tremendously," said Sriram Papani, Senior Vice President
       and Head of Oracle Practice at Satyam. "It not only helps create
       business processes across all applications but also accelerates SOA
       initiatives."
    -- "The co-development opportunities available with Application
       Integration Architecture give Infosys the ability to offer solutions
       which help organizations quickly and seamlessly adapt IT environments
       to changing business needs," said Chandrashekar Kakal, Senior Vice
       President and global head for Enterprise Solutions group at Infosys
       Technologies. "The combination of our implementation expertise with
       standards-based Oracle Applications gives customers a repeatable way to
       enhance the value of their technology investments. The high-tech
       product we're co-developing with Oracle is the first testament of our
       joint efforts to leverage the new Architecture."
    -- "Our clients are moving their focus from internal data-level
       integration towards a mixture of internal and external process-level
       integration. This creates a need for new, different and innovative
       technologies to help them solve their business issues," said Andy
       Mulholland, Chief Technology Officer, Capgemini. "We are looking
       towards Oracle Application Integration Architecture as a very positive
       addition to the Capgemini portfolio to meet our clients needs."
    -- "Our customers have unique industry specific requirements. Oracle's AIA
       offering provides an excellent platform to rapidly provide niche
       functionality, which can then be reused and enhanced by customers in
       the same vertical. Oracle AIA also works as a business driven initiator
       for SOA, making the business a champion for implementing SOA." --
       Kevin Sullivan, Senior Vice President -- Oracle Practice, Fujitsu
       Consulting.
    -- "Oracle's Application independent design makes it easy to plug and play
       with new and existing applications," said GK Murthy, Senior Vice
       President Enterprise Solutions, Sierra Atlantic. "One of the value-adds
       that excites our company, is AIA enables businesses to create
       sustainable world-class integrations -- across all Oracle, legacy,
       third party and Partner solutions, including Oracle Fusion ready
       solutions. Sierra Atlantic's expertise in building these integrations
       using AIA is something our joint customers are endorsing as a high ROI
       business solution."
    -- "Oracle AIA is a game changing initiative to provide a 'business
       process glue' for best-of-breed Oracle products like Siebel, BRM,
       OSM /SSM, ASAP, PIM, specifically designed and built for the global
       communications industry. This will not only help make business process
       transformation and optimization easy and flexible but will also ensure
       that the solution is agile enough to address business changes rapidly.
       It is something our customers have been striving to achieve and will
       help them tremendously in reducing the cycle time and deploying
       releases right the first time," said L. Ravichandran, Executive Vice
       President and COO, Tech Mahindra.
    -- "Oracle's AIA provides integrated best-in-class applications built
       using a common open standards based SOA platform, that combined with
       Wipro's deep technical expertise, helps deliver an end-to-end lower TCO
       solution to our joint customers in the telecom space," commented
       Sangita Singh, Senior Vice President EAS, Wipro.
    -- "Companies need to know that they are getting the most from their
       valuable data assets. Acxiom makes achieving the value of their data
       and marketing investments a reality by developing a flexible, reliable
       and sustainable integration of Acxiom CDI-XTM customer management
       solutions with Oracle applications based on Application Integration
       Architecture," said Jim Plas, Vice President, Customer Data Integration
       at Acxiom.


    Supporting Resources

    Oracle PartnerNetwork Portal: http://www.oracle.com/partners/index.html

    Oracle and ISVs: http://www.oracle.com/partnerships/isv/index.html

    Oracle and SIs: http://www.oracle.com/partnerships/si/index.html

Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA): http://www.oracle.com/applications/oracle-application-integration- architecture.html

Oracle Application Integration Architecture FAQ: http://www.oracle.com/applications/aia-faq.pdf

Oracle Application Integration Architecture for Partners Initiative: http://www.oracle.com/partners/home/bi/global/integration/unauth/applications- integration.html

Data Sheet: http://www.oracle.com/webapps/dialogue/dlgpage.jsp?p_dlg_id=6073190&src=563427 9&Act=44

    Webcasts and Podcasts

    AIA Foundation Pack
    Webcast:

http://www.oracle.com/webapps/dialogue/dlgpage.jsp?p_dlg_id=6073190&src=563427

9&Act=44

    Oracle AppCasts -- Communications and AIA:
http://www.oracle.com/applications/podcasts.html

About the Oracle PartnerNetwork

Oracle PartnerNetwork is a global business network of more than 19,500 companies who deliver innovative software solutions based on Oracle software. Through access to Oracle's premier products, education, technical services, marketing and sales support, the Oracle PartnerNetwork program provides partners with the resources they need to be successful in today's global economy. Oracle partners are able to offer their customers leading-edge solutions backed by Oracle's position as the world's largest enterprise software company. Partners who are able to demonstrate superior product knowledge, technical expertise and a commitment to doing business with Oracle qualify for the Certified Partner levels.

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