APPLICATIONS

For the second time in Latin America, Oracle opened its user conference, called OpenWorld in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Oracle Senior Vice President of Latin America Luiz Meisler welcomed and thanked nearly 8,000 attendees, and indicated it was one of the biggest information technology conferences held in Latin America to date. Mr. Meisler provided a comprehensive update on Oracle's business in Latin America, emphasizing the three key points of the show -- to give attendees the opportunity to learn about Grid Computing, the latest version of Oracle Applications (Oracle 11i10) and Oracle On Demand. "The future of technology is software as a service," said Mr. Meisler. It eliminates the need for capital investment in information technology." He further explained how with the OnDemand model, Oracle "does everything" and how it changes "IT's focus on maintaining infrastructure to a business focus with greater return on investment." Starting with a base of 35 customers today, Mr. Meisler said he expects to see demand grow for Oracle On Demand in Latin America, particularly in Mexico. To underscore Oracle's commitment to software as a service, Mr. Meisler then introduced the new Executive Vice President of Oracle On Demand Juergen Rottler. Mr. Rottler emphasized that Oracle is well positioned to drive change through technology and the application of technology in business. Mr. Rottler noted, specifically, why Oracle On Demand has seen such early success in Latin America. "Oracle On Demand allows you to buy software as a service. Oracle has a much higher stake in your environment and we can provide much more predictable value. It allows us to help customers in Latin America and other regions transition from today's complex environments -- which make it difficult to adapt and derive value -- to tomorrow's proactive, strategic approach to information technology." In addition to explaining how Oracle On Demand can assist customers in using information technology strategically, Mr. Rottler revealed three key inflection points shaping the industry today: "data overload" and how current IT architectures are reaching their processing limits as a result; the growing dependency between applications and their software infrastructure; and a realizing the promise of information and intelligence. Mr. Rottler explained how Oracle Grid Computing, Oracle Applications and Oracle On Demand can help customers transform data into valuable information and how to achieve maximum reliability and quality of service. "The architecture of the future is simplicity," explained Mr. Rottler. "Oracle's answer is our information architecture. It the underlying investment we've made in our software for the past five years. We believe everything starts with information."