Oracle Asia Pacific Gains Business Momentum

Oracle Asia Pacific Gains Business And Customer Momentum In Fy03

FY04 Focus On Go-To-Market Strategy By Industry And Helping Asia Pacific Companies Achieve Good Corporate Governance

New Zealand, June 19, 2003 -- Oracle Asia Pacific, a division of Oracle Corporation -- the world's largest enterprise software company, today announced that it has continued to gain business and customer momentum in FY03 as businesses across the region continued to choose Oracle software and services to improve business processes, efficiency and performance as well as effectively lower information technology (IT) costs. Increasingly, businesses in Asia Pacific are purchasing or upgrading to the Oracle E-Business Suite 11i, Oracle9i Database, Oracle9i Application Server and Oracle Collaboration Suite to realize the benefits associated with a single data model that stores information across a full range of integrated applications. In addition, Oracle Outsourcing garnered significant interest across Asia Pacific as companies chose to outsource the management and support of their Oracle software to Oracle and take advantage of a more predictable cost model which can reduce overall IT costs and decrease the time necessary to resolve software issues.

+++ Asia Pacific Companies Realize Cost, Productivity Benefits of Oracle Technology

Oracle's technology infrastructure products include the world's leading database -- Oracle9i Database -- Oracle9i Application Server and Oracle Collaboration Suite. Because e-business Web sites, as well as transactional and decision support applications, require both a database and an application server, the combination of Oracle9i Database and Oracle9 i Application Server are an ideal choice for organizations that want the performance and cost saving benefits of a complete and integrated infrastructure. Oracle9i Database and Oracle9i Application Server enable businesses, organizations and governments around the world to run their mission-critical business applications on a highly reliable, available and scalable foundation.

Oracle Collaboration Suite is the first product that leverages the Oracle9i Database and Oracle9i Application Server infrastructure to offer a secure, reliable and scalable way to simplify business communications and consolidate information -- helping reduce hardware, software and administration costs. Oracle Collaboration Suite offers customers a suite of enterprise-class messaging and collaboration applications that enables organizations to reduce total cost of ownership while increasing user productivity.

During the most recent quarter FY03Q4 (ended 31 May 2003), customers in Asia Pacific who purchased Oracle9i Database, and/or Oracle9i Application Server, and/or Oracle Collaboration Suite include China Telecom (China), Digi Telecommunications (Malaysia), Maxis Communications (Malaysia), Ministry of Health (Malaysia), CrimsonLogic (Singapore), Great Eastern Life Assurance (Singapore), National Healthcare Group (Singapore), Thai Military Bank Plc (Thailand) and Toyota Motor (Thailand).

+++ Oracle Applications Gain Broad Traction in Asia Pacific, Growth in Mid-Market

Customers also continued to choose the Oracle E-Business Suite to help them efficiently manage all core business processes, such as customer management, manufacturing, marketing, order management and supply chain management, from one global system. Companies in Asia Pacific that purchased Oracle applications in FY03Q4 included Qantas Airways Ltd (Australia), China Unicom (China), Tian Shi Group (China), VTech (Hong Kong), Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) (India), Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (India), Canon Marketing (Singapore), Fuji Hunt Photographic Chemicals (Singapore), JMS Singapore (Singapore), Bangkok Insurance Plc (Thailand) and Central Retail Corporation (Thailand). Primary reasons customers selected the Oracle E-Business Suite include its broad functionality as well as Oracle's single architecture and open data model, which allow applications to be deployed as individual modules, business flows or an entire integrated suite.

Oracle also continued to see traction in the important mid-market enterprise segment, which makes up about 50 percent of its customer base in Asia Pacific today. The pilot roll-out in China of the Oracle E-Business Suite Special Edition -- a pre-installed, pre-configured solution that incorporates hardware, software, implementation, support and education -- was well received. Early adopters that have benefited from the cost effective and quick implementations include Beijing Digital Telecom Investment, Foshan Ship, Gentle Science & Technology, Golden Ideas and United Electronics. Modern CASS International Cosmetics Co., Ltd (Thailand), Open Computing Technologies Limited (Thailand) and Juken Technology (Singapore) were among mid-market companies in the region that have recently adopted and gone live on the Oracle E-Business Suite.

FY04 Focuses on Industries, Innovative Solutions and Corporate Governance "While FY2003 was a challenging business year given the tough economic conditions, we still managed to deliver a good set of results in Asia Pacific," said Derek Williams, executive vice president for Oracle Asia Pacific. "Not only have customers across Asia Pacific continued to choose Oracle software for its quality and breadth of functionality, but we also saw significant uptake in our Linux and Outsourcing offerings as customers sought to further reduce the costs of information management."

Moving forward, key areas of focus in FY04 for Oracle in Asia Pacific will include working closely with companies in key industries -- including financial services, public sector and government, telecommunications, and manufacturing/distribution -- and helping customers meet the challenges of good governance and compliance through strategic decision-making and implementation of business systems. In addition, as more than 75 percent of Oracle's revenues in the region are derived through its extensive network of partners, Oracle Asia Pacific plans to continue to invest in key initiatives and new programs designed to reinforce its partner-focused go-to-market strategy.

"Our goal is to work closely with companies in each industry to enable them to respond to changes in the global economy and implement industry-tailored technology solutions to reduce costs, drive better business processes and increase profitability. On top of this, we will be helping our customers to achieve good corporate governance through strategic adoption of technology. Leading companies in Asia want to do more than just meet new regulatory requirements in the near term; most are already looking at establishing a corporate culture of accountability and investing in technology to support good governance and transparency to ensure their long term business viability and success," added Williams.

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