SAP AG

Founded Weinheim (1972)Headquarters Walldorf, Germany

Key people

Henning Kagermann, co-CEOLeo Apotheker, co-CEO, President, Global Customer Solutions & OperationsHasso Plattner, Chairman of the Supervisory BoardPeter Zencke, Gerhard Oswald, Claus Heinrich, John Schwarz, Members of the Executive Board

Industry Computer software

Products

SAP Business Suite, SAP ERP, SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM), SAP Supply Chain Management (SAP SCM), SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SAP SRM), SAP Product Lifecycle Management (SAP PLM), SAP NetWeaver, SAP Business One, SAP Business ByDesign, SAP Business All-in-One

Revenue €10.25 billion (2007)[1]

Employees >40,000 (2007)Website www.sap.com

SAP AG (ISIN: DE0007164600, FWB:SAP, NYSE: SAP) is the largest European software enterprise and the third largest in the world, with headquarters in Walldorf, Germany.

HistorySAP was founded in 1972 as Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung by five former IBM engineers in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg (Dietmar Hopp, Hans-Werner Hector, Hasso Plattner, Klaus Tschira, and Claus Wellenreuther).[3] The acronym was later changed to stand for Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung ("Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing").In 1976 "SAP GmbH" was founded and the following year it moved headquarters to Walldorf. SAP AG became the company's official name

after the 2005 annual general meeting (AG is short for Aktiengesellschaft).In August 1988, SAP GmbH transferred into SAP AG (a corporation by German law), and public trading started November 4. Shares are listed on the Frankfurt and Stuttgart stock exchange.The founding members Dietmar Hopp, Hasso Plattner, Klaus E. Tschira and Hans-Werner Hector form the executive board. In 1995, SAP was included in the German stock index DAX. On September 22, 2003, SAP was included in the Dow Jones STOXX 50.[4] In 1991, Prof. Dr. Henning Kagermann joined the board; Dr. Peter Zencke became a board member in 1993.[5] Claus Heinrich,[6] and Gerhard Oswald [7] have been members of the SAP Executive Board since 1996. Two years later, in 1998 the first change at the helm takes place. Dietmar Hopp and Klaus Tschira move to the supervisory board, Dietmar Hopp is appointed Chairman of the supervisory board. Henning Kagermann is appointed as Co-Chairman and CEO of SAP next to Hasso Plattner. Werner Brandt joined SAP in 2001 as member of the SAP Executive Board and Chief Financial Officer since 2001.[8] Léo Apotheker has been a member of the SAP Executive Board and president of Global Customer Solutions & Operations since 2002, was appointed Deputy CEO in 2007, then became co-CEO alongside Kagermann in 2008.Henning Kagermann became the sole CEO of SAP in 2003.[9] In February 2007 his contract was extended until 2009. After continuous disputes over the responsibility of the development organization, Shai Agassi, a member of the executive board who had been named as a potential successor to Kagermann, left the organization.[10]

Milestones Technical SolutionsIn 1972 the SAP R/1 solution was launched.[11] Seven years later, in 1979, SAP launched SAP R/2.[11] In 1981, SAP brought a completely re-designed solution to market. With the change from R/2 to R/3 in 1992, SAP followed the trend from mainframe computing to client-/server architectures. The development of SAP’s Internet strategy with mySAP.com redesigned the concept of business processes (integration via Internet).[3] SAP is awarded Industry Week’s Best Managed Companies in 1999.[12]

In 2003 launched its technology platform SAP NetWeaver, followed by the announcement in 2005 of the development of a Business Process Platform.[11]

Business and marketsSAP is the world's largest business software company and the third-largest independent software provider in terms of revenues.[13] It operates in three geographic regions – EMEA, which represents Europe,

Middle East and Africa; the Americas (SAP America, headquartered in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania), which represents both North America and Latin America; and Asia Pacific Japan (APJ), which represents Japan, Australia and parts of Asia. In addition, SAP operates a network of 115 subsidiaries, and has R&D facilities around the globe in Germany, North America, Canada, China, Hungary, India, Israel and Bulgaria.SAP focuses on six industry sectors: process industries, discrete industries, consumer industries, service industries, financial services, and public services.[14] It offers more than 25 industry solution portfolios for large enterprises[15] and more than 550 micro-vertical solutions for midsize companies and small businesses.[16]

ProductsSAP's products focus on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), which it helped to pioneer. The company's main product is SAP ERP. The name of its predecessor SAP R/3 hints at its functionality: the "R" stands for realtime (even though it is not a realtime solution), the number 3 relates to a 3-tier architecture: database, application server and client (SAPgui). R/2, which ran on a Mainframe architecture, was the first SAP version.SAP ERP is one of five major enterprise applications in SAP's Business Suite. The other four applications are:

customer relationship management (CRM) - helps companies acquire and retain customers, gain deep marketing and customer insight, and align organization on customer-focused strategies

product lifecycle management (PLM) - helps manufacturers with a single source of all product-related information necessary for collaborating with business partners and supporting product lines

supply chain management (SCM) - helps companies enhance operational flexibility across global enterprises and provide real-time visibility for customers and suppliers

supplier relationship management (SRM) - customers can collaborate closely with suppliers and integrate sourcing processes with applications throughout the enterprise to enhance transparency and lower costs

Other major product offerings include: the NetWeaver platform, Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) solutions, Duet (joint offering with Microsoft), Performance Management solutions and RFID. SAP offers a systematic approach to enterprise SOA, which is the technical standard that enables various enterprise software applications to exchange data effectively. Through enterprise SOA, SAP is focusing on enabling more flexible business processes as well as creating technical

connections between IT systems and building a common language for business.While its original products were typically used by Fortune 500 companies, SAP is now also actively targeting small and medium sized enterprises (SME) with its SAP Business One and SAP Business All-in-One. On September 19th, 2007 SAP announced a new product named SAP Business ByDesign complementing its portfolio for SME. SAP Business ByDesign was known under the code name "A1S" before.[17]

SAP officials say there are over 100,600 SAP installations serving more than 41,200 companies in more than 25 industries in more than 120 countries.[18]

PartnershipsPartnerships are core to SAP’s strategy and in its 35 years of history the network of software solution providers, value-added resellers, distributors, technology and services partners has developed into a broad ecosystem that is among the industry's largest.[19] Opened in June 2007, the SAP Co-Innovation Lab in Palo Alto, Calif. provides an efficient work environment for joint projects with independent software vendors (ISVs), such as Novell, Questra and Wonderware, system integrators (SIs) and technology partners to work together with SAP around current and future technologies. Co-founded by Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and NetApp, the lab offers a hands-on environment and real-world performance for Web-enabled and Internet/intranet-accessible business applications based on Enterprise SOA.[20]

SAP partners include Global Services Partners with cross-industry multinational consulting capabilities,[21] Global Software Partners providing integrated products that compliment SAP Business Suite solutions,[22] and Global Technology Partners providing user companies with a wide range of products to support SAP technology, including vendors of hardware, database, storage systems, networks, and mobile computing technology.[23]

SAP partners with Protiviti, Hewlett-Packard, Siemens IT Solutions and Services and Accenture. Among other services there are assessment, government and architecture for R3.[citation needed]

SAP PartnerEdgeSAP solutions for small businesses and midsize companies are delivered through its global partner network. In 2008, SAP signed SAP Global Service partnership with HCL Technologies, a $4.7 b technology service provider, located in India.[24]. The SAP PartnerEdge program, SAP's partner program, offers a set of business enablement resources and program benefits to help partners including value added resellers

(VARs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) be profitable and successful in implementing, selling, marketing, developing and delivering SAP solutions to a broad range of customers.[25]

Gartner states that SAP PartnerEdge has "set a new standard for innovation in channel development for the small and midsize business application market."[citation needed]

CommunitiesSAP Developer Network (SDN) is a community of developers, consultants, integrators, and business analysts gaining and sharing knowledge about ABAP, Java, .NET, SOA, and other technologies via expert blogs, discussion forums, exclusive downloads and code samples, training materials, and a technical library.[26] The Business Process Expert (BPX) Community is a collaborative environment for business process experts to share information, experiences and best practices to leverage enterprise SOA in order to increase business agility and IT value.[27] The SAP Enterprise Services Community serves as a platform for members from customers, industry experts and partners working collaboratively to define enterprise services.[28] Industry Value Networks (IVN) bring together customers, partners and SAP to co-innovate and develop solutions to solve industry-specific customer challenges. There are currently eleven active IVNs (e.g. Banking, Chemicals, Consumer Products, High Tech, Public Sector, Retail).[29]

OrganizationFunctional units of SAP are split across different organizational units for R&D needs, field activities and customer support. SAP Labs are mainly responsible for product development where as the field organizations spread across each country are responsible for field activities such Sales, Marketing, Consulting etc. Head office located in SAP AG is responsible for overall management as well as core Engineering activities related to Product Development. SAP customer support, also called Active Global Support (AGS) is a global organization to provide support to SAP customers worldwide.

SAP Labs

SAP Labs are the research and development organizations of the parent company. SAP has its labs spread across the globe.Prominent labs are located in Palo Alto, USA; Bangalore and Gurgaon India; Ra'anana, Israel; Montreal and Shanghai, China. SAP Labs located in Bangalore is the largest development unit in terms of

number of employees outside the SAP headquarters located in Walldorf, Germany.Other SAP Labs locations include France, Bulgaria and Hungary.Each SAP Lab has prominent area of expertise and focus. SAP Labs in Sofia, Bulgaria for example specializes in development of Java based SAP software products. Whereas, SAP Labs in U.S. is famous for its focus on innovation and research. Then again, SAP Labs India contributes to all areas of the SAP product value chain- Research & Breakthrough Innovation, Product Development, Global Services & Support and Customer Solutions & Operations.

User GroupsUser groups are independent, not-for-profit organizations of SAP customer companies, partners, analysts, thought leaders, and SAP development teams that provide insight into market demand and are educating members, thus influencing SAP product releases and direction. Examples of user groups are Americas' SAP Users' Group ASUG,[30] the German SAP User Group (DSAG),[31] the SAP Australian User Group (SAUG)[32] and the SAP UK & Ireland User Group.[33][34]

Competitive LandscapeSAP competitors are primarily in the Enterprise Resource Planning Software industry. SAP also competes in the Customer Relationship Management, Marketing & Sales Software, Manufacturing, Warehousing & Industrial Software, and Supply Chain Management & Logistics Software sectors.[35]

Oracle Corporation, SAP's major competitor, filed a case against SAP for malpractice and unfair competition in the Californian courts on 22nd March 2007. The complaint alleged that a Texas subsidiary, SAP TN (formerly TomorrowNow before purchase by SAP), which provides discount support for legacy Oracle product lines, used the accounts of former Oracle customers to systematically download patches and support documents from Oracle's website and appropriating them for SAP's use.[36][37]. Later SAP admitted wrong-doing on smaller scale than Oracle claimed in the Lawsuit.SAP has admitted to inappropriate downloads however the company denies the theft of any intellectual property.[38]

SAP is known to grow organically as opposed to its main rival Oracle which has been spending US$20 billion since 2004 acquiring 30 smaller competitors. SAP was able to increase its annual profits by 370% since 2002.[39]

In something of a departure from its usual organic growth, on Oct 7, 2007, SAP announced that it will acquire Business Objects, the market leader in business intelligence software, for $6.8B.[40]

List of SAP productsThis presents a list of products of the enterprise software company SAP AG.

Enterprise Applications SAP

o Customer Relationship Management (CRM) o Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) o Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) o Supply Chain Management (SCM) o Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)

Business Solutions SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO) SAP Analytics SAP Apparel and Footwear Solution (AFS) SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW) SAP Business Intelligence (BI) SAP Catalog Content Management (CCM) SAP Enterprise Buyer Professional (EBP) SAP Enterprise Learning SAP Portal (EP) SAP Exchange Infrastructure (XI) SAP Financial and Controlling (FICO) Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) SAP Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS) SAP Internet Transaction Server (ITS) SAP Knowledge Warehouse (KW) SAP Manufacturing SAP Master Data Management (MDM) SAP Materials Management (MM) SAP Plant Maintenance (PM) SAP Production Planning (PP)

SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) SAP Service and Asset Management SAP Solutions for mobile business SAP Solution Composer SAP Solution Manager SAP Strategic Enterprise Management (SEM) SAP Test Data Migration Server (TDMS) SAP Training and Event Management (TEM) SAP NetWeaver Application Server (Web AS) SAP xApps SAP Quality Maintenance (QM)

Solutions for Small and Midsize Enterprises

SAP Business One (6.2, 6.5, 2004, 2005, 7.x) SAP Business ByDesign[1]] SAP Business All-in-One

Platforms and frameworks SAP Enterprise Services Architecture SAP NetWeaver Platform

o SAP NetWeaver Portal (formerly SAP Enterprise Portal) o SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence o SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer o SAP Auto-ID Infrastructure o SAP Composite Application Framework o SAP Netweaver Development Infrastructure

SAP Business Connector (deprecated/removed from product range)

Legacy Platforms

SAP R/3 SAP R/2

Others SAP CCMS , monitoring program SAPgui eCATT SAP Central Process Scheduling , process automation and job scheduler

SAP ImplementationSAP Implementation is the whole of processes that defines a complete method to implement SAP software in an organization. The SAP implementation method described in this entry is a generic method and not a specific implementation method as such. It is based on best practices and case studies from various literature sources and presents a collection of processes and products that make up a complete implementation method to allow any organization to plan and execute the implementation of SAP (ERP) software.

IntroductionThe implementation of SAP software, such as SAP R/3 is almost always a massive operation that brings a lot of changes in the organization. The whole process can take up to several years. Virtually every person in the organization is involved, whether they are part of the SAP technical support organization (TSO) or the actual end-users of the SAP software. The resulting changes that the implementation of SAP generates are intended to reach high level goals, such as improved communication and increased return on information (as people will work with the same information). It is therefore very important that the implementation process is planned and executed with the usage of a solid method. There are various SAP implementation methods, such as IBM’s Ascendant. An example of how one company, Robert Bosch GmbH, implemented SAP R/3 over 10 years is available [1]. This study shows that designing IT architecture is very critical in SAP implementation practices.

Overview

Figure 1: SAP Implementation process-data diagramThe SAP implementation process is made up out of four main phases, i.e. the project preparation where a vision of the future-state of the SAP solution is being created, a sizing and blueprinting phase where the solution stack is created and training is being performed, a functional development phase and finally a final preparation phase, when the last tests are being performed before the actual go live. For each phase, the vital activities are addressed and the deliverables/products are explained.

The process-data diagram that is depicted at the right, gives an overview of all of these activities/processes and deliverables. The four gray boxes depict the four main implementation phases, which each contain several processes that are in this case all sequential. The boxes at the right show all the deliverables/concepts that result from the processes. Boxes without a shadow have no further sub-concepts. Boxes with a black shadow depict complex closed concepts, so concepts that have sub-concepts, which however will not be described in any more detail. Boxes with a white shadow (a box behind it) depict open closed concepts, where the sub-concepts are expanded in greater detail. The lines with diamonds show a has-a relationship between concepts.Many of implementations are also done with ASAP(Accelerated SAP) methodolgy evolved from best practises in SAP.

Table of conceptsThe data table below provides a summary of all the concepts addressed in the process-data diagram.

Concept Definition

CHANGE MANAGEMENT

***Activities involved in (1) defining and installing new values, attitudes, norms, and behaviors within an organization that support new ways of doing work and overcome resistance to change; (2) building consensus among customers and stakeholders on specific changes designed to better meet their needs; and (3) planning, testing, and implementing all aspects of the transition from one organizational structure or business process to another. (www.gao.gov)

CHANGE MANAGEMENT DOCUMENTATION

All documentation that is required and being delivered whilst performing change management, e.g. the functional test cases and all the other documents a new end-user of SAP requires and the various tools and approaches used to manage change by the TSO. (Anderson, 2003)

COST OF OWNERSHIP ANALYSIS

Determination of where and when the costs are inquired within the context of the SAP solution stack and ongoing operations. The analysis addresses all internal and external costs, both one-time as well as recurring (Anderson, 2003)

CUTOVER The process of transitioning from one system to a new one (Anderson, 2003)

CUTOVER PLAN

All documentation related to planning, preparing and executing cutover, describing how to lock down the system from a technical change management perspective, preparing the TSO for its new role and rolling out the SAP graphical user interface to all future end users. (Anderson, 2003)

DATA CENTERA data center is a facility used for housing a large amount of electronic equipment, typically computers and communications equipment. (www.wikipedia.org)

DATA CENTER REQUIREMENT

A requirement for the SAP data center, i.e. a physical requirement like power requirements, a rack requirement, a network infrastructure requirement or a requirement to the network server. (Anderson, 2003)

DISASTER RECOVERY (DR) REQUIREMENT

Requirement that focuses on downtime that lasts many hours to days or even weeks (Anderson, 2003)

FUNCTIONAL TEST CASE

A set of conditions or variables under which a tester will determine if a certain business process works (www.wikipedia.org)

HIGH AVAILABILITY (HA) REQUIREMENT

Requirements that describes the amount of time that the system needs to be available to satisfy the needs of the users. (Anderson, 2003)

INSTALLATION DOCUMENTATION

All documentation related to the installation of an end-to-end SAP solution (Anderson, 2003)

OPERATIONS MANUAL

The collection of current state system documentation, day-to-day and other regularly scheduled operations tasks, various installation and operations checklists and how-to process documents. (Anderson, 2003)

SAP SAP AG is the name of the biggest European software

company. The head office is in Walldorf, Germany. SAP was founded in 1972 as Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung ("Systems Analysis and Product") by five former IBM employees in Mannheim, Germany. (www.wikipedia.org)

SAP IMPLEMENTATION PROJECT PLAN

A comprehensive project plan that contains all products that are delivered whilst performing an SAP implementation project (Anderson, 2003)

SOLUTION STACKSet of software subsystems or components needed to deliver a fully functional solution, e.g. a product or service. (www.wikipedia.org)

SOLUTION STACK PARTNERS LIST

A list of all vendors that deliver the products that make up the SAP solution stack (Anderson, 2003)

SOLUTION VISION A vision of the future-state of the SAP solution (Anderson, 2003)

STRESS TEST PLAN

A test plan that is focused at determining the stability of a given system or entity. It involves testing beyond normal operational capacity, often to a breaking point, in order to observe the results. (www.wikipedia.org)

TEST PLAN

A detail of how the test will proceed, who will do the testing, what will be tested, in how much time the test will take place, and to what quality level the test will be performed. (IEEE 829)

TRAININGThe acquisition of knowledge, skills, and attitudes as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relates to specific useful skills (www.wikipedia.org)

TRAINING PLAN

Consisting of training units, a training plan is the result of hierarchical decompositions of a training goal, tailored according to the learning preferences and prior knowledge of the trainee. A plan is the means by which the trainee satisfies the goal. (www.ece.eps.hw.ac.uk/)

TSOTechnical Support Organization. The people that are committed to implementation and management of SAP. (Anderson, 2003)

TSO CHART A chart that depicts the structure of the TSO. (Anderson, 2003)

Activity tableThe following table provides a summary of all of the activities that form the SAP implementation process. These activities will be described with more detail and elaborated with examples in the rest of this entry.

Activity Sub-Activity Description

Project preparation

Craft solution vision

Refine and communicate a SOLUTION VISION of the future-state of the SAP solution, to sketch a design that meets both business and financial requirements. The focus should be on the company’s core business and how the SAP solution will better enable that core business to be successful.

Design and initially staff the SAP TSO

Design and staff the key positions of the SAP Technical Support Organization (TSO), the organization that is charged with addressing, designing, implementing and supporting the SAP solution.

Sizing and blueprinting Perform cost of

ownership analysis

Perform a COST OF OWNERSHIP ANALYSIS to determine how to get the best business solution for the least money i.e. to determine where and when the costs are incurred within the context of the SAP solution stack.

Identify high availability and disaster recovery requirements

Determine all HIGH AVAILABILITY and DISASTER RECOVERY REQUIREMENTS, to plan what to do with later downtime of the SAP system

Engage SAP solution stack

Select the best SAP hardware and software technology partners for all layers and components of the SAP

vendors SOLUTION STACK, based on a side-by-side sizing comparison

Staff TSO

Staff the bulk of the TSO, i.e. fill the positions that directly support the near-term objectives of the implementation, which are to develop and begin installation/implementation of the SAP data center.

Execute training

Train the various members of the SAP TSO, like data center specialists, high availability specialist and network specialists and train the end-users to give all the required SAP knowledge and skills

Setup SAP DATA CENTER

Build a new SAP DATA CENTER facility or transform the current data center into a foundation capable of supporting the SAP SOLUTION STACK

Perform installations

Install the (My)SAP components and technological foundations like a web application server or enterprise portal.

Round out support for SAP

Identify and staff the remaining TSO roles, e.g. roles that relate to help desk work and other such support providing work.

SAP functional development Address Change

Management

Develop a planned approach to the changes in the organization. The objective is to maximize the collective efforts of all people involved in the change and minimize the risk of failure of implementing the changes related to the SAP implementation.

Address SAP systems and operations management

Create a foundation for the SAP systems management and SAP computer operations, by creating a SAP OPERATIONS MANUAL and by evaluating SAP management applications.

Perform functional, integration and

Test the SAP business processes, by executing functional tests to ensure that business processes work, integration tests to ensure that the organization’s

regression tests

business processes work together with other business processes and regression tests to prove that a specific set of data and processes yield consistent and repeatable results.

Final Preparation

Perform systems and stress tests

Plan, script, execute and monitor SAP STRESS TESTS, to see if the expectations of the end users, defined in service level agreements, will be met.

Prepare for cutover

Plan, prepare and execute the CUTOVER, by creating a CUTOVER PLAN that describes all cutover tasks that have to be performed before the actual go-live

Go Live Turn on the SAP system for the end-users

Critical success factorsIn order to successfully implement SAP in an organization, there are several things that are of great importance. First it is very important to get the support from all the people that are involved in implementing SAP, but also the people that will actually use the SAP software. Second it is essential to create a solution vision at the beginning of the implementation track, so that everybody within the organization knows why SAP is being implemented. Third and last it is very important to test the SAP hardware and software rigorously and to ensure that the end-users are ready to use SAP before going live, because there are many known projects that failed because of a lack of support and SAP knowledge...

PeopleSoft

Fate merger

Successor Oracle Corporation

Founded 1987Defunct 2005

Location Walnut Creek, California, USAKey people David Duffield, Ken Morris

PeopleSoft, Inc. was a company that provided Human resource management systems (HRMS), customer relationship management, Manufacturing, Financials, Enterprise Performance Management, and Student Administration software solutions to large corporations, governments, and organizations.

HistoryFounded in 1987 by David Duffield and Ken Morris and originally headquartered in Walnut Creek, California, and eventually Pleasanton, California, PeopleSoft's roots began with an idea Duffield had about a "Client-Server" version of Integral Systems popular mainframe HRMS package. Once Integral declined development, Duffield was released to pursue this endeavor on his own, PeopleSoft was born. In 2003, when the company acquired J.D. Edwards, it decided to differentiate its former product line with those of Edwards by renaming both products. In January 2005, PeopleSoft was acquired in a hostile takeover by Oracle Corporation. This takeover was resisted, but Oracle overcame the legal challenge and PeopleSoft ceased to be an independent company. Peoplesoft products continue to be used all over the world.

Product designPeopleSoft's product suite (also called PeopleSoft) was initially based on the Client-Server architecture. The entire software suite moved to a web-centric design called Pure Internet Architecture (PIA) with the release of PeopleSoft Version 8. The new format allowed all of a company's business functions to be accessed and run on a web client. Originally, a small number of security and system setup functions still needed to be performed on a fat client machine, however, this is no longer the case. The inherent nature of Internet-based applications allowed for a straightforward transition from a client-server model[citation

needed]. One important feature of PeopleSoft's PIA is that no code is required on the client - there is no need for additional downloads of plugins, or JVMs such as the Jinitiator required for Oracle Applications.The architecture is built around PeopleSoft’s proprietary PeopleTools technology. (development platform similar to a 4GL) PeopleTools includes many different components a developer needs to create an application, including a scripting language called PeopleCode, design tools to define various types of metadata, standard security structure,

and batch processing tools. The metadata describes data for user interfaces, tables, messages, security, navigation, portals, and so forth. The benefit of creating their own development platform allowed PeopleSoft applications to run on top of many different operating systems and database platforms. Currently, it is not tied to any specific database platform. PeopleSoft implementations exist or have existed on Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Informix, Sybase, IBM DB2 (including its z/OS, Unix and OS/400 variants), Oracle Rdb and HP AllBase/SQL.All of PeopleSoft’s modules (Human Resources, Supply Chain, Financials, CRM, etc.) are built with the PeopleTools technology. A benefit of the technology is that all the code which makes up a module can be customized to suit a company’s business needs. An auxiliary product, PeopleCode, is an object-oriented proprietary language used to express business logic for PeopleSoft applications.

J.D. EdwardsIn 2003, PeopleSoft performed a friendly merger with smaller rival J.D. Edwards. The former rival's similar product line was differentiated by its target audience; mid-sized companies who could not afford the original PeopleSoft applications. J.D. Edwards product lines, formerly J.D. Edwards World on the AS/400 and OneWorld was and continues to be differentiated by its Configurable Network Architecture or CNC Architecture. This architecture is designed to shield applications from both the operating system of the database backend servers as long as some flavor of the SQL language is used. Thus, IBM's DB2/UDB, Microsoft's SQL 2005 and Oracle's databases are supported. J.D. Edwards also continued to support thousands of customers on AS/400s running its original J.D. Edwards World or WorldSoft" product.Likewise servers can run on a host of operating systems including Linux, Windows and IBM's AS/400 operating system. In addition, PeopleSoft remains committed to supporting J.D. Edwards's original AS/400-based World software, also called WorldSoft, the old-style "green screen" application — the same application which drove Duffield to branch out and create PeopleSoft in the first place.

Oracle CorporationBeginning in 2003, PeopleSoft battled with Oracle over control of the PeopleSoft company. In June 2003, Oracle made a $7 billion bid ($19.50/share) in a hostile corporate takeover attempt. In February 2004, Oracle increased their bid to approximately $9.4 billion ($26/share), a 33% increase; this offer was also rejected forthwith by PeopleSoft's board of directors. Later that month, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit to block Oracle, on the grounds that the acquisition

would break anti-trust laws; however, in September 2004, the suit was rejected by a U.S. Federal judge, who found that the Justice Department had not proven its anti-trust case; in October, the same decision was handed down by the European Commission. Though Oracle had reduced its offer to $7.7 billion ($21/share) in May, it again raised its bid in November to $9.4 billion ($24/share), marking a 14% increase.In December 2004, Oracle announced that it signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire PeopleSoft for approximately $10.3 billion ($26.50/share). In January 2005, Oracle made drastic cuts in the PeopleSoft ranks. These cuts affected approximately 9% of the 55,000 staff of the combined companies, but they have maintained at least 90% of PeopleSoft's product development and support staff.After its acquisition of PeopleSoft, Oracle rebranded the original J.D. Edwards products to once again include the J.D. Edwards name in order to capitalize on the strong brand loyalty that was perceived to exist within the J.D. Edwards user community. Thus, PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne was rebranded JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and PeopleSoft World was rebranded JD Edwards World.PeopleSoft has merged with Oracle and a new product Fusion is to be released by Oracle in the near future. Oracle says Fusion will take the best aspects of the PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and Oracle Applications and merge them into a new product suite.Oracle is, however, offering to maintain support for the existing Oracle and PeopleSoft product lines for customers who wish to continue with what they have. The line they are taking appears to be an attempt to prevent customer defections to rival ERP vendors by making it attractive to retain current applications or move to Fusion when appropriate.

PeopleSoft in usePeopleSoft software has been successfully implemented by many of its customers. However there have been instances of litigation. As with any ERP software, the implementation process (including analysis, planning and development), performance (load) testing and various other types of software testing is absolutely critical towards the success of the project.Although Student Administration and Higher Education systems make up only a small portion of the company's user base, they seem to have attracted a degree of adverse comment.In 1997, Cleveland State University licensed PeopleSoft's software for tracking student records. They initially had an implementation partner, Kaludis Consulting Group Inc. After seven years of difficulties, CSU sued - initially naming Kaludis, but later (after Kaludis countersued)

naming PeopleSoft as the main defendant and including Kaludis. The suit was for $510 million, claiming breach of contract, fraud, negligent misrepresentation and four other counts. The university claimed that software developed by PeopleSoft was missing specified features, and as a result caused disruption to their admissions process. PeopleSoft claimed that they had followed industry best practices. Court documents available online show the case was settled in 2005. The settlement agreement mentions a payment from Kaludis to CSU, as part of the settlement. There is no mention of any payment by PeopleSoft.In December 1999, seven of the eight "Big Ten" Midwestern universities which licensed PeopleSoft's software wrote a joint, open letter to the PeopleSoft CEO complaining about quality and performance issues.The California State University system adopted PeopleSoft in the early 2000s. The university spent $500 million on this system in a process so deficient that it resulted in an investigation and a rebuke by the state legislature. The Report of the California State Auditor criticised the University, amongst other things, for not having a business case for the implementation. When asked why it never conducted a formal return-on investment analysis on the CMS project, the university explained that the magnitude of potential savings estimated by its consultants, IBM and Pacific Partners Consulting Group (Pacific Partners), led them to believe that such a formal analysis was unnecessary.

PeopleSoft timeline 1987: PeopleSoft, Inc. founded by David Duffield and Ken Morris in Walnut

Creek, CA, USA. 1988: PeopleSoft HRMS released. 1991: Begins opening international offices. 1994: Public distribution of Distribution and Financials modules. 1995: Launch of Student Administration System. 1996: Releases Manufacturing and PeopleSoft 6, their first ERP package. 1997: PeopleSoft 7 is released within upgraded ERP modules. 1998: PeopleSoft 7.5 is released with improved client/server technology.

Acquired Intrepid Systems. 1999: Craig Conway named new CEO; release products to enable Internet

transactions. 2000: Acquired Vantive Corporation. 2000: Deliver PeopleSoft 8 with an in-house application service provider. 2003: Acquired J.D. Edwards 2005: Acquired by Oracle Corporation. 2007: PeopleSoft HCM 9.0 is released.

BaanBaan was a vendor of popular enterprise resource planning (ERP) software that is now owned by Infor Global Solutions.

HistoryThe Baan Corporation was created by Jan Baan in 1978 in Barneveld, Netherlands, to provide financial and administrative consulting services. With the development of his first software package, Jan Baan and his brother Paul Baan entered what was to become the ERP industry. The Baan company focused on the creation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.Baan gained its popularity in the early nineties. It became a real threat to market leader SAP after beating SAP in the Boeing deal. However the management exaggerated the company revenue by booking software license selling to a related reseller. The revelation of this manipulation led to a sharp decline of Baan's stock price.[1]

In June 2000, facing worsening financial difficulties, law suits and reporting seven consecutive quarterly losses and bleak prospects, Baan was sold at a price of US$700 million to Invensys,[2] a UK automation, controls, and process solutions group to become a unit of its Software and Services Division. Laurens van der Tang was the president of this unit. With the acquisition of Baan, Invensys's CEO Allen Yurko had a vision to offer "Sensor to Boardroom" solution to customers.In June 2003, after the stepping down of Allen Yurko, Invensys sold Baan unit to SSA Global Technologies for US$ 135 million. The main attempt was to reduce the high amount of debt of Invensys, and also because Invensys had no cash to inject to turn around Baan.Upon acquiring the Baan software, SSA renamed Baan as SSA ERP Ln. In August 2004, SSA Global released new version of Baan, SSA ERP LN 6.1. In May 2006, SSA was acquired by Infor Global Solutions of Atlanta, which was a major ERP consolidator in the market.Baan is still one of the best ERP products for discrete manufacturing industries, especially for Make to Order and Engineering to order

market.[3] Nowadays, still thousands of manufacturers are running on Baan software.[citation needed]

J. D. EdwardsJ.D. Edwards, also called JDE, is a software company founded in March 1977 in Denver, Colorado by Jack Thompson, C.T.P."Chuck" Hintze, Dan Gregory and Ed McVaney. The company made its name building accounting software for IBM minicomputers, beginning with the System/34 and /36, focusing from the mid 1980s on System/38 minicomputers, switching to the AS/400 when it became available. Their main AS/400 offering was called JDEdwards WorldSoftware and is popularly called World. In 1996, J.D. Edwards also launched a client-server version of their software called OneWorld. The company's official name was J.D. Edwards World Source Company and it is located at One Technology Way, in Denver, CO 80237. JDE was bought out by PeopleSoft in 2003. PeopleSoft, in turn, was purchased by Oracle Corporation in 2005.

J.D. Edwards and the Ed McVaney storyEd McVaney, was originally trained as an engineer at the University of Nebraska. Upon finishing his MBA from Rutgers and taking a job with Western Electric in mid-1964, and working applied mathematics schemes theory McVaney first came into contact with both computers used for operations research using mathematical modeling programs. Self-taught in machine language, but discouraged by computer and software limitations, McVaney took a position with Peat Marwick in New York City in 1964. From NYC he was transferred to Denver, Colorado in 1968. He continued with Marwick until 1970 when he took a position with Alexander Grant, which subsequently became Grant Thornton. While at Grant Thornton, McVaney met Jack Thompson who was working an IBM 1130 in Billings, Montana, and he was making $630 a month. Thompson was lured to Grant Thornton for $750 a month which brought him from Billings to Denver. McVaney had worked closely with Thompson going back to the time they had spent as consultants at the Great Western Life Insurance Company. At that time McVaney also met Dan Gregory, a college MBA student from Denver University. McVaney hired him out of the MBA program at Denver University. McVaney describes that time as a period in which he was developing his personal concept of integrity from a "high school level" to a much more mature business-related notion of absolute reliability. At the same time

he was coming to the realization that, in his words, "The culture of a public accounting firm is the antithesis of developing software. The idea of spending time on something that you’re not getting paid for -- software development -- they just could not stomach that."[1] This indicated to McVaney that accounting clients at that time did not understand what was required for software development at that time. After a what McVaney described as a consulting "failure" at a client, Haviland Whitcon Company, in San Jose, California, McVaney came to the conclusion that he had to start his own firm to implement his own approach to accounting business software development. McVaney had been discussing starting his own firm with both his wife as well as Thompson and Gregory. Now it was time to make the move, telling her, "I think it’s time for me to start my own company. Look, I don’t really fit in here. The culture isn’t right. I want to get done some things that can’t be done as context. I’d like to start my own company." Soon he would have his chance.

J.D. Edwards is bornIn 1977, unsatisfied with conventional approaches to business and accounting software development and accounting software services, McVaney started J.D. Edwards by selling co-workers, Dan Gregory and Jack Thompson on his concept of a radically different approach to accounting software development that represented for all of them a significant cultural shift from typical sales promises to total commitment to customer goals based on an integrity-based approach to customer requirements. After discarding the name, Jack Daniels & Co., the group decided that J.D. Edwards sounded better. In order to get an $8,000 loan, McVaney took a salary cut from $44,000 to $36,000 and in order to live on that salary, all optional family expenses such as piano lessons, skiing and swimming lessons were pared.

Initial clientsStart-up clients included McCoy Sales in Denver, Colorado, a then $4-million wholesale distribution company and Cincinnati Milacron Company, a makers of machine tools. McVaney and his team received a $75,000 contract to write software to develop a wholesale distribution system. The new company also got a $50,000 contract with the Colorado Highway Department to develop a governmental accounting, construction cost accounting system. McVaney's first international client was Shell Oil Company in Cameroon, Africa. Co-founder Dan Gregory flew to Shell Oil, himself to install the company's first international, multi-national, multi-transcurrency client software system. JD Edwards's software was originally coded for the IBM System

36/38 and later upgraded to support the AS/400 and called JDEdwards World Software. Late in 1996, the software was ported to client-server systems and branded JD Edwards OneWorld. By first quarter 1998, JD Edwards had 26 OneWorld customers and was finally implementing its strategic vision of "life after AS/400" and moving its mid-sized companies customers to the new client-server flavor of ERP . By second quarter, JDE had 48 customers.[2]

Quality control issues with OneWorld begin to surfaceWithin a year of the release of OneWorld, customers and industry analysts were discussing serious reliabilty, unpredicatability and other bug-related issues. In user group meetings, these issues were raised with JDE management. So serious were these major quality issues with OneWorld that by 2000, one of JDE's founders, Ed McVaney came out of retirement specifically to get OneWorld back on track. At an internal 2000 meeting in Atlanta, Georgia with some of his Company's CNC consultants, McVaney told them he had decided that he would "wait however long it took to have OneWorld 100% reliable and had thus delayed the release of version B7333 one full year because he "wasn't going to let it go out on the street until it was "ready for prime time."The release of B7333, branded OneWorld Xe saw a marked improvement in quality. The patching process and change management process had been markedly improved and the product was received with a collective sigh of relief by both customers and a doubtful press. Since the release of Xe, the product has gone through a brand change from OneWorld to EnterpriseOne as a result of the PeopleSoft purchase of JD Edwards in early 2004. The underlying code had not changed dramatically with the exception of a Web-based client, introduced in 2001 and finally robust for customer use with the release of E810 in 2005. Initial issues with release E811 in 200, lead to a quick service pack to E811-SP1 which salvaged the reputation of that product. By 2006, E812 was announced and by 2008, the much-anticipated B9 was being tested internally and the 8.97 system/foundation code called a Tools Release was announced.The update to Tools Release 8.96 on top of the applications upgrade to E812 saw the replacement of often unstable proprietary object specifications (also called 'specs') with an XML-based system which promised to be much more reliable. A linkage to the traditional Oracle Applications layer called "Oracle Fusion" was also in the offing.

Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP software concept developed

With the vast majority of JDEdwards's customers in the medium sized area, clients did not have the luxury of gigantic accounting software implementations. There was a basic business need for all accounting to be tightly integrated. As McVaney would explain in 2002, integrated systems were created precisely because "you can’t go into a moderate-sized company and just put in a payroll. You have to put in a payroll and job cost, general ledger, inventory, fixed assets and the whole thing. SAP had the same advantage that J.D. Edwards had because we worked on smaller companies, we were forced to see the whole broad picture." [3] It was this requirement for both JDE clients in the USA and Europe as well as competitor SAP, whose typical clients were much smaller than the American fortune 500 firms. McVaney and his company, along with their European competitors developed what would be called ERP software in response to that business requirement.

3 JDE roles in ERPAs an ERP system JDE comprises 3 basic areas of expertise, functional-business, programmer-developer and technical-CNC-system administration.

Functional business analyst

A JDE functional person is an expert on one or more of the JDE modules, financials, manufacturing, operations, transportation, sales and other areas. This person is the business subject matter expert. Often they started as a JDE user, the super user or power user and gradually developed the skill set of being able to support the business aspects of JDE. Other times, they might have a business degree and come into JDE on the job as a business analyst. This person seldom has any programming or development experience.

Developer/programmer

This person is trained in the software development and programming tools that translate the business requirements as identified by the functional people above into code and programming. Sometimes these individuals simply modify existing JDE objects and in other cases, develop entire suites of applications using the OneWorld/EnterpriseOne development tools including the Report Design Aide (RDA), Table Design Aide (TDA), business function C-code design tools and others using JDE's change management system, Object Management Workbench.

CNC - ERP System architect, engineer and administrator

This is a catch-all function comprising all that the two positions above do not cover including, installation, upgrades, updates, change management, system administration, security, performance tuning, package build and deployment and over-all architecture. The CNC title is taken from the term Configurable Network Computing which describes the overall JDE architecture.

McVaney takes J.D. Edwards public, retires, returns and retires againMcVaney felt that in order to compete effectively, his company needed additional capital and needed to go public. Bringing in Doug Massingill in as CEO, J.D. Edwards went public on September 24, 1997, at an initial price of $23 per share and was traded on NASDAQ under the symbol JDEC. By 1998, J.D. Edwards revenue was in excess of $934.0 million when McVaney retired. McVaney came out of retirementin April 2000 as CEO, replacing Massingill, because he felt that ongoing problems with quality control of the Company's client-server OneWorld product were severely cutting into the Company's credibility as an ERP provider. McVaney stood firm that the Company wait as long as necessary to release an absolutely ironclad-reliable upgraded ERP product. After a delaying the upgrade for one year and refusing all requests by marketing for what he felt was a premature release, in the fall of 2000, J.D Edwards released B7333 which was rebranded as "OneWorld Xe." Xe proved to be the most stable release to date and went a long way towards restoring customer confidence. McVaney had also been quietly encouraging customer feedback by supporting the totally independent J.D. Edwards user group called Quest International. Confident that the company was on the right track, McVaney retired again in January 2002, bringing in Robert Dutkowsky from Teradyne as the new president and CEO. McVaney remained on the board.

Company evolutionThe company had gradually been adding functions to its accounting software, evolving it into a platform-independent enterprise resource planning (ERP) application that was renamed OneWorld in 1996. This newer technology used the so-called Configurable Network Computing architecture to transparently shield business applications from the servers that ran those same applications, the databases in which the

data was stored as well as the underlying operating system and server hardware.

2003 buyout of J.D. Edwards by PeopleSoftIn June 2003, the J.D. Edwards board agreed to an offer under which PeopleSoft would acquire J.D. Edwards; the takeover was completed in July. OneWorld was added to PeopleSoft’s software line and was renamed EnterpriseOne.

2004 buyout of PeopleSoft by OracleIn December 2004, Oracle completed the acquisition of PeopleSoft and has, since then, continued to support products that were created by J.D. Edwards. The final purchase went through in January of 2005. The PeopleSoft brand names in relation to the J.D. Edwards offerings, EnterpriseOne and WorldSoftware, were retired. Today, the products are called respectively, Oracle JDEdwards EnterpriseOne and Oracle JDEdwards World.

Continued development of the J.D. Edwards ERP productsOracle has announced a product under development called "Project Fusion" (probably will be renamed when it is closer to commercial release in 2008). This product will be designed to replace existing Oracle Applications Suite, as well as products acquired from PeopleSoft (Enterprise) and J.D. Edwards (OneWorld/EnterpriseOne and World). After the acquisition, Oracle continues to enhance the EnterpriseOne suite, with 8.12 being the latest release version of this product and World, with A9.1.

J.D. Edwards' founders involvement in philanthropyIn May 1998, Ed McVaney donated more than $32 million to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to establish the J.D. Edwards Honors Program. This program is charged with educating the next generation of business professionals by combining computer science education with business management skills. J.D. Edwards' founder and M.I.T. graduate Hintze donated more than $28 million to the advancement

and development of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hintze died in September of 1996 but left a continuing legacy with his gifts and education.

Oracle CorporationOracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) is one of the major companies developing database management systems (DBMS), tools for database development, middle-tier software, enterprise resource planning software (ERP), customer relationship management software (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM) software. Oracle was founded in 1977, and has offices in more than 145 countries around the world. As of 2005, it employed more than 50,000 people worldwide and is the world's second largest software company.Lawrence J. Ellison (Larry Ellison) has served as Oracle's CEO throughout the company's history. Ellison served as the Chairman of the Board until his replacement by Jeffrey O. Henley in 2004. Ellison retains his role as CEO. Forbes magazine once judged Ellison the richest man in the world.Ellison was inspired by the paper written by Edgar F. Codd on relational database systems named A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks. He had heard about the IBM System R database from an article in the IBM Research Journal provided by co-founder Ed Oates, also based on Codd's theories, and wanted Oracle to be compatible with it, but IBM stopped this by keeping the error codes for their DBMS secret. He founded Oracle in 1977 under the name Software Development Laboratories. In 1979 SDL changed its name to Relational Software, Inc. (RSI). In 1983, RSI was renamed Oracle Systems to more closely align itself with its flagship product Oracle Database with Robert Miner as senior programmer.

History

June 16 , 1977: Oracle Corporation was incorporated in Redwood Shores, California [1] as Software Development Laboratories (SDL) by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates.

June 1979: SDL is renamed to Relational Software Inc. (RSI), and relocates to Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California. Oracle 2, the first version of the Oracle database software runs on PDP-11 and is sold to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The company decides to name the first version of its flagship product version 2 rather than version 1 because it believes companies may hesitate to buy

the initial release of its product (and, or IBM would not divulge to render the original take).

October 1979: RSI actively promotes Oracle on the VAX platform (the software runs on the VAX in PDP-11 emulator mode)

1981 Umang Gupta joined Oracle Corporation where he wrote the first business plan for the company, and served as Vice President and General Manager of the Microcomputer Products **

February 1981: RSI begins developing tools for Oracle, including the Interactive Application Facility (IAF), a predecessor to Oracle*Forms.

Bruce Scott was one of the first employees at Oracle (then Software Development Laboratories). He co-founded Gupta Technologies (which later became Centura Software) in 1984 with Umang Gupta, and later became CEO and founder of PointBase, Inc. Bruce was co-author and co-architect of Oracle V1, V2 and V3. He created the sample schema "SCOTT" (containing tables like EMP and DEPT) with the password defaulted to TIGER (apparently named after his cat).

March 1983: RSI rewrites Oracle in C for portability and Oracle version 3 is released. RSI is renamed to Oracle to more closely align with its primary product. The word Oracle was the code name of a CIA project which the founders had all worked on while at the Ampex Corporation.

April 1984: Received additional funding from Sequoia Capital. October 1984: Oracle version 4 released, introducing read consistency November 1984: Oracle ports the database software to the PC platform. The MS-

DOS version (4.1.4) of Oracle runs in only 512K of memory. Oracle for MSDOS version 5 was released in 1986 running in Protected Mode on 286 machines using a technique invented by Mike Roberts, among the first products to do so.

April 1985: Oracle version 5 released. It is one of the first RDBMSs to operate in client-server mode.

1986: Oracle version 5.1 released with support for distributed queries. Investigations into clustering begin.

March 12 , 1986: Oracle goes public with revenues of $55 million USD. August 1987: Oracle founds its Applications division, building business

management software closely integrated with its database software. Oracle acquires TCI for its project management software.

1988: Oracle version 6 is released with support for row-level locking and hot backups. The PL/SQL procedural language engine was embedded in the database but no provision was made to store program blocks such as procedures and triggers in the database - this capability was added in v7. PL/SQL blocks could be submitted for immediate execution in the server from an environment such as SQL*Plus, or via SQL statements embedded in a host program. Separate PL/SQL engines were included in various client tools (SQL*Forms, Reports).

1989: Oracle moves world headquarters to Redwood Shores, California. Revenues reach US$584 million

1990: In the third quarter, Oracle reports its first ever loss, hundreds of employees are laid off. Ellison hires Jeffrey O. Henley as CFO and Raymond Lane as COO.

June 1992: Oracle 7 released with performance enhancements, administrative utilities, application development tools, security features, the ability to persist

PL/SQL program units in the database as stored procedures and triggers, and support for declarative referential integrity

1993: Releases Oracle's Cooperative Development Environment (CDE) which bundles Oracle Forms, Reports, Graphics, Book

1994: Oracle acquired the database-product DEC Rdb (now called Oracle Rdb) from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and development is still going on. Oracle Rdb is only available on the OpenVMS platform (also a former product of DEC).

June 21 , 1995: Oracle announces new data warehousing facilities, including parallel queries.

November 1995: Oracle is one of the first large software companies to announce an internet strategy when Ellison introduces the network computer concept at an IDC conference in Paris

April 1997: Oracle releases the first version of Discoverer, an ad-hoc query tool for business intelligence.

June 1997: Oracle 8 is released with SQL object technology, internet technology and support for terabytes of data

September 1997: Oracle announces its commitment to the Java platform, and introduces Oracle's Java integrated development environment, which will come to be known as Oracle JDeveloper.

January 1998: Oracle releases Oracle Applications 10.7 NCA. All the applications in the business software now run across the web in a standard web browser.

May 1998: Oracle Applications 11 is released. April 1998: Oracle announces that it will integrate a Java virtual machine with

Oracle Database. September 1998: Oracle 8i is released. October 1998: Oracle 8 and Oracle Application Server 4.0 are released on the

Linux platform. May 1999: Oracle releases JDeveloper 2.0, showcasing Business Components for

Java (BC4J), a set of libraries and development tools for building database aware applications.

2000: OracleMobile subsidiary founded. Oracle 9i released. May 2000: Oracle announces the Internet File System (iFS), later rebranded as

Oracle Content Management SDK. June 2000: Oracle9i Application Server released with support for building portals. 2001: Ellison announces that Oracle saved $1 billion implementing and using its

own business applications 2004: Oracle 10g released. December 13 , 2004: After a long battle over the control of PeopleSoft, Oracle

announces that it has signed an agreement to acquire PeopleSoft for $26.50 per share (approximately $10.3 billion).

January 14 , 2005: Oracle announces that it will reduce its combined workforce to 50,000, a reduction of approximately 5,000 following the PeopleSoft take over. 90% of PeopleSoft product development and product support staff will be retained.

March, 2005: Oracle extends its Middle East operations by opening a regional office in Amman, Jordan.

September 2005: Oracles announces that it has agreed to acquire Global Logistics Technologies, Inc. (private company), a global provider of logistics and transportation managements software (TMS) solutions through a cash offer.

September 12 , 2005: Oracle announces it had agreed to buy Siebel Systems, the global leader in CRM technologies and a key player in the BI realm, for $5.8 billion.

October 25 , 2006: Oracle announces Unbreakable Linux November 2 , 2006: Oracles announces that it has agreed to acquire Stellent, Inc.

(NASDAQ: STEL), a global provider of enterprise content management (ECM) software solutions, through a cash tender offer for $13.50 per share, or approximately $440 million.

December 15, 2006, a majority of MetaSolv stockholders approved Oracle’s acquisition of MetaSolv Software, a Leading Provider of Operations Support Systems (OSS) Software for the Communications Industry.

March 1 , 2007: Oracle announced that it has agreed to buy Hyperion Solutions Corporation (Nasdaq: HYSL), a leading global provider of performance management software solutions, through a cash tender offer for $52.00 per share, or approximately $3.3 billion. The transaction is subject to customary conditions and is expected to close in April 2007.

March 22 , 2007: Oracle filed a court case against its major competitor SAP AG in the Californian courts for malpractice and unfair competition. The full text of the filing can be found on the claimants web site under the heading newsroom.

October 12 , 2007: Oracle announced that it had made a bid to buy BEA Systems for a price of $17/share, an offer that was rejected by the BEA board who felt that the company was worth more than that.

October 16 , 2007: Oracle confirms impending departure of John Wookey, senior vice president for application development and head of its applications strategy, raising questions in the planned release and future of Oracle's Fusion Applications strategy.[1]

January 16 , 2008: Oracle announces it is buying BEA Systems for $19.375/Share in cash for a total of '$7.2 billion net of cash.' [2]

Technology timeline

1979 : Offers the first commercial SQL RDBMS. 1983 : Offers a VAX-mode database. 1984 : Offers the first database with read consistency. 1986 : Offers a client-server DBMS. 1987 : Introduces UNIX-based applications. 1988 : Introduces PL/SQL. 1992 : Offers full apps implementation methodology. 1995 : Offers the first 64-bit RDBMS. 1996 : Moves to an open standards-based, web-enabled architecture. 1999 : Offers its first DBMS with XML support.

2001 : Becomes the first to complete 3 terabyte TPC-H world record. 2002 : Offers the first database to pass 15 industry standard security evaluations. 2003 : Introduces what it calls "Enterprise Grid Computing" with Oracle10g. 2005 : Releases its first free database, Oracle Database 10g Express Edition (XE). 2006 : Oracle becomes the global leader in CRM technologies by virtue of its

takeover of Siebel Systems.

RDBMS release timeline

1978 : Oracle version 1 1979 : Oracle version 2 1982 : Oracle version 3 1984 : Oracle version 4 1986 : Oracle version 5 1989 : Oracle version 6 1993 : Oracle version 7 1997 : Oracle version 8 1999 : Oracle version 8i 2001 : Oracle version 9i 2003 : Oracle version 10g 2007 : Oracle version 11g

Products and servicesTechnology products

Oracle Databases

As of 2004, Oracle Corporation shipped release 10g (g: grid) as the latest version of Oracle Database. Oracle Application Server 10g using Java EE comprises the server part of that version of the database, making it possible to deploy web technology applications. The application server is the first middle-tier software designed for grid computing. The strong interrelationship between Oracle 10g and Java has enabled the company to allow developers to set up stored procedures written in the Java language, as well as those written in the traditional Oracle database programming language, PL/SQL.Oracle Rdb is a relational database system running on OpenVMS platforms. Oracle acquired Rdb in 1994 from Digital Equipment Corporation. Oracle has since made many enhancements to this product and development continues today.

Main article: Oracle Database

Oracle Fusion Middleware

Main article: Oracle Fusion Middleware

Oracle Enterprise Manager

Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) used by database administrators (DBAs) to manage the DBMS, and recently in version 10g, a web-based rewrite of OEM called "Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control". Oracle Corporation has dubbed the super Enterprise Manager used to manage a grid of multiple DBMS and Application Servers as "Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control".

Main article: Oracle Enterprise Manager

Oracle Secure Enterprise Search

Oracle Collaboration Suite contains messaging, groupware and collaboration applications.Oracle Corporation's tools for developing applications include Oracle Designer, Oracle Developer - that consists of Oracle Forms, Oracle Discoverer and Oracle Reports, Oracle JDeveloper, and several more. Many external and third-party tools make the Oracle database administrator's tasks easier.

Application products

Besides databases, Oracle also sells a suite of business applications. The Oracle eBusiness Suite includes software to perform financial (Oracle Financials), manufacturing, enterprise resource planning and HR (Human Resource Management Systems) related functions (Oracle HR). User access to these facilities is provided through a browser interface over the internet or corporate intranet.Consequent to a number of high-value acquisitions beginning in 2003, especially in the Applications domain, Oracle currently maintains a number of product lines:

Oracle eBusiness Suite

Main article: Oracle eBusiness Suite PeopleSoft Enterprise

Main article: PeopleSoft Siebel

Main article: Siebel Systems JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

Main article: J.D. Edwards JD Edwards World

Development of applications commonly takes place in Java (using Oracle JDeveloper) or through PL/SQL (using, for example, Oracle Forms and Oracle Reports). Oracle Corporation has started a drive toward 'wizard'-driven environments with a view to enabling non-programmers to produce simple data-driven applications.

Services

Oracle Consulting Oracle University Oracle On Demand Oracle Support Oracle Financing

CompetitionIn 1990, Oracle laid off 10% (about 400 people) of its work force because of a mismatch between cash and revenues. This crisis, which almost resulted in Oracle's bankruptcy, came about because of Oracle's "up-front" marketing strategy, in which sales people urged potential customers to buy the largest possible amount of software all at once. The sales people then booked the value of future license sales in the current quarter, thereby increasing their bonuses. This became a problem when the future sales subsequently failed to materialize. Oracle eventually had to restate its earnings twice, and also to settle out of court class action lawsuits arising from its having overstated its earnings. Ellison would later say that Oracle had made "an incredible business mistake."Although IBM dominated the mainframe relational database market with its DB2 and SQL/DS database products, it delayed entering the market for a relational database on UNIX and Windows operating systems. This left the door open for Sybase, Oracle, and Informix (and eventually Microsoft) to dominate mid-range and microcomputers.Around this time, Oracle fell behind technically to Sybase. In 1990-1993, Sybase was the fastest growing database company and the database industry's darling vendor, but soon fell victim to its merger mania and technical issues with System X.[citation needed] Sybase's 1993 merger with PowerSoft resulted in its losing its focus on its core database technology. In 1993, Sybase sold the rights to its database software running under the Windows operating system to Microsoft Corporation, which now markets it under the name "SQL Server."In 1994, Informix Software overtook Sybase and became Oracle's most important rival. The intense war between Informix CEO Phil White and Ellison was front page Silicon Valley news for three years. Ultimately, Oracle defeated Informix in 1997. In November of 2005, a book

detailing the war between Oracle and Informix was published. "The Real Story of Informix Software and Phil White" provides a detailed chronology of the battle of Informix against Oracle, and how Informix Software's CEO Phil White landed in jail because of his obsession to overtake Ellison. Later in 1997, Ellison was made a director of Apple Computer after Steve Jobs came back to the company. Ellison resigned in 2002, saying that he did not have the time to attend necessary formal board meetings.Once Informix and Sybase were defeated, Oracle enjoyed years of industry dominance until the rise of Microsoft's SQL Server in the late 90s and IBM's acquisition of Informix Software in 2000 to complement their DB2 database. Today Oracle's main competition for new database licenses on UNIX, Linux, and Windows operating systems is with IBM's DB2 and with Microsoft SQL Server (which only runs on Windows). IBM's DB2 still dominates the mainframe database market.In 2004, Oracle's sales grew at a rate of 14.5% to $6.2 billion, giving it 41.3% and the top share of the relational-database market (InformationWeek - March, 2005), with market share estimated at up to 44.6% in 2005 by some sources [3]. Oracle's main competitors in the database arena are IBM DB2 and Microsoft SQL Server, and to a lesser extent Sybase and Teradata [4], with open-source databases such as PostgreSQL and MySQL also having a significant share of the market. EnterpriseDB, based on PostgreSQL, has recently made inroads[5] by proclaiming that their product delivers Oracle compatibility features at a much lower price point.In the applications arena, their main competitor is SAP. On March 22, 2007 Oracle sued SAP, accusing them of fraud and unfair competition.[2]

Oracle and SAP: Growing rivalry

Oracle Corporation and the German SAP AG have had a decade-long history of cooperation. This cooperation began in 1988, with the integration of SAP's R/3 enterprise application suite with Oracle's relational database products. Their products were considered to be complementary to one another, rather than substitutes. Despite the current SAP partnership with Microsoft, and the increasing integration of SAP applications with Microsoft products (such as SQL Server, a competitor to Oracle Database), Oracle and SAP continue their cooperation, and according to Oracle, the majority of SAP's customers use Oracle databases.In recent years, however, competition between Oracle and SAP has increased, and as a result, the rivalry between the two companies has grown, even developing into a feud between the co-founders of the two companies, where one party would frequently voice strong negative comments about the other company.

In 2004 Oracle began to increase its interest in the business of enterprise applications (in 1989, Oracle had already released Oracle Financials). A series of acquisitions began, the most notable being the acquisition of PeopleSoft and Siebel (and most currently, Hyperion).SAP recognized that Oracle was becoming a competitor in a market where SAP had the leadership, and saw an opportunity to lure in customers from those companies that had been acquired by Oracle. It would offer those customers special discounts on the licenses for its enterprise applications (Safe Passage Program). Oracle would resort to a similar strategy, by advising SAP customers to get "OFF SAP" (a play on the words of the acronym for its middleware platform "Oracle Fusion for SAP"),[4] and by also providing special discounts on licenses and services to SAP customers who chose Oracle.Currently, Oracle and SAP are also competing in the third-party enterprise software maintenance and support market (the latter through its recently acquired subsidiary TomorrowNow). On March 22, Oracle filed a suit against SAP. The complaint alleged that TomorrowNow, which provides discount support for legacy Oracle product lines, used the accounts of former Oracle customers to systematically download patches and support documents from Oracle's website and appropriating them for SAP's use.[6] [7] Some ERP market analysts suggested the suit could be part of a strategy by Oracle to decrease competition by SAP in the third-party enterprise software maintenance and support market.[8] [9] On July 3, SAP admitted that TomorrowNow employees had made "inappropriate downloads" from the Oracle support web site. However, it claims that SAP personnel and SAP customers had no access to Oracle intellectual property via TomorrowNow. SAP's CEO Henning Kagermann stated that "Even a single inappropriate download is unacceptable from my perspective. We regret very much that this occurred." Additionally, SAP announced that it has "instituted changes" in TomorrowNow's operational oversight.[5]

Controversies Trashgate

In 2000 Oracle drew attention from the industry and the eyes of the press after hiring private eyes to dig through the trash of organizations involved in the Microsoft antitrust trial[6]. Oracle Corp. Chairman Larry Ellison staunchly defended his company's hiring of an East Coast detective agency to investigate groups that supported rival Microsoft Corp. during its antitrust trial, calling the snooping a "public service." The investigation reportedly included a $1,200 offer to janitors at the Association for Competitive Technology to look through the

organization's trash. Asked how he'd feel if others were looking into Oracle's business activities, Ellison said: "We will ship our garbage to Redmond, and they can go through it. We believe in full disclosure."[7]

"Can't break it, can't break in"

Oracle markets many of its products using the slogan "Can't break it, can't break in", or "Unbreakable". This signifies the increasing demands on information safety. Oracle Corporation also stresses the reliability of networked databases and network access to databases as major selling points.However, two weeks after its introduction in 2002, David Litchfield, Alexander Kornbrust, Cesar Cerrudo and others demonstrated a whole suite of successful attacks against Oracle products.[8][9]. The slogan was widely criticized as unrealistic, and as an invitation to crackers. But Oracle chief security officer Mary Ann Davidson says the criticism is unfair. Rather than representing a literal claim that Oracle's products are impregnable, the campaign refers to fourteen independent security evaluations[10] that Oracle's database server passed.

Relationship with John Ashcroft

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft sued Oracle in 2004 to prevent a contract acquisition. Then, in 2005, Oracle hired Ashcroft's recently created lobbying firm, The Ashcroft Group, LLC. Oracle, with Ashcroft's lobbying, then went on to acquire the contract, a multi-billion dollar intelligence application.[11]

Headquarters

Oracle HQ.Oracle Corporation has its world headquarters on the San Francisco Peninsula in the Redwood Shores area of Redwood City, adjacent to Belmont, near San Carlos Airport (IATA airport code: SQL).Oracle HQ stands on the former site of Marine World Africa USA, which moved from Redwood Shores to Vallejo in 1986. Oracle Corporation originally leased two buildings from the site, moving its finance and administration departments from the corporation's former headquarters in Davis Drive, Belmont, California. Eventually, Oracle purchased the complex and constructed a further four main buildings.The Oracle Parkway buildings were prominently featured as the futuristic headquarters of fictional company "NorthAm Robotics" in the Robin Williams film Bicentennial Man (1999).[12]