Oracle Application Express

What is Application Express?

Oracle Application Express (Oracle APEX), formerly called HTML DB, is a rapid web application development tool for the Oracle database. Using only a web browser and limited programming experience, you can develop and deploy professional applications that are both fast and secure. Oracle application express combines the qualities of a personal database, productivity, ease of use, and flexibility with the qualities of an enterprise database, security, integrity, scalability, availability and built for the web. Application Express is a tool to build web-based applications and the application development environment is also conveniently web-based. Watch this Application Express Positioning flash demonstration and then try Application Express simply by signing up for an account at apex.oracle.com.

Funny Oracle Job Interview Questions!

Oracle guru Joel Garry has many other talents, (he restores classic Corvettes), and he is also quite a talented writer.

He wrote this list of funny Oracle job interview questions. Take the time to read it, very insightful and funny! Here are some:

7. Why separate Index and Data tablespaces?

A. 'Cause Oracle says to.
B. 'Cause some people say it doesn't matter, and you want to prove
them wrong.
C. It doesn't matter as long as they are not being accessed at the
same time.
D. It does matter, since they will nearly always be accessed at the
same time.
E. It doesn't matter, since they won't be accessed at the same time.
F. It depends. It might matter sometimes, and maybe not other times
and maybe the few times it does aren't enough to make a difference, or
maybe they do.
G. This can only be determined empirically based on observed I/O
requests, so cannot be predicted ahead of time.
H. This can only be determined empirically, although it can be
mathematically approximated through queuing theory and analysis of
predicted data requests and updates. But it's just too expensive to
do so, so just spread them across logical volumes on a RAID array with
big stripes and stop worrying about it.

14. You are interviewing for a DBA job, and the interviewer seems to be interested in everything except you. You:

A. Use a cold voice to clearly let him know you don't want your
valuable time wasted, and take control of the situation.
B. Gamely explain what great DBA experience you've had and how it can
help this company. Then quote Monty Python and see if he notices.
C. Pick a heavy personal object off the desk and throw it through a
closed window, then make a comment about first having to get the
mule's attention.
D. Take off all your clothes, jump up on the desk and sing Ziggy
Stardust at the top of your lungs.
E. Grab your things and leave, but give a complement to and flirt
with the receptionist. Later, call and have her get you in to talk to the
CEO about becoming the interviewer's boss.

24. What is a DBA?

A. Someone to blame.
B. It varies by organization.
C. An all-powerful, all-knowing, all-omniscient godlike being beyond
the ken of mortal man.
D. A legal notice required to use a fictitious name.
E. Dumb Big Assbite.
F. Someone who can code really, really well.

29. What is the most CPU-intensive thing you can do?

A. Flush a buffer.
B. Buff a flusher.
C. Parse a Query.
D. Queer a Parsey.
E. Checkpoint.


35. You get an ORA-600, look up the error on MetaLink, don't quite understand it, so post a question on UseNet. You get nasty replies about not wasting people's time with homework questions. You:

A. Never use usenet again.
B. Flame each reply.
C. Re-ask the question with more detail.
D. Defensively question the manhood of usenet posters.
E. Spray Diet Coke out of your nose.
F. Open a support call.

Greenpix Simulator in Beijing

'Nederlanders mogen trotser zijn'

We mogen best wat trotser zijn op Nederland. Dat vindt althans de helft van de 24.000 respondenten die meewerkten aan het jaarlijkse Koninginnedag onderzoek van actualiteitenrubriek EénVandaag waarvan de resultaten vandaag werden bekendgemaakt.

55 Procent zegt dat ze zelf trots zijn op Nederland. Eenderde is neutraal en 12 procent is niet trots. De meeste ondervraagden denken ook dat Nederlanders minder trots zijn op hun land dan andere Europese volken. Koningin Beatrix, prins Willem-Alexander, Paul de Leeuw, Erica Terpstra en Rita Verdonk vertegenwoordigen het meest 'het Nederland gevoel'.

A Practical Demonstration of SaaS using Oracle Application Express

by Steve Bobrowski

Learn the basic concepts of "software as a service" architecture by building your own mini-SaaS application.

Whether you believe in creation, intelligent design, or Darwinism, evolution is an undeniable process that spans most everything around us. In nature, species evolve to survive in an ever-changing environment. And in business, well-managed companies evolve their business operations to compete better and increase profits.

One of the most prevalent trends in today's business world is an evolution toward the delivery and consumption of software as a service, or SaaS. This article explains some of the fundamental concepts, benefits, and implementation details of SaaS and provides a workshop on building a demonstration application so that developers and consumers can better understand and take advantage of this emerging technology.

Why SaaS?

In the broadest sense, SaaS is an uncomplicated concept: customers access software as a hosted application over the Internet. So why is such a straightforward idea all the rage? Consider a simple example that compares how a medium-size or large business might implement a standard customer relationship management (CRM) application by taking two different approaches: the traditional on-premises, application ownership model versus the on-demand SaaS, or application subscriber model.

The traditional application ownership model typically requires a company to;

Buy software and support licenses for an operating system, database, and CRM application
Purchase hardware (one or more servers and storage) to support the CRM application
Hire a staff of one or more administrators and consultants to install, configure, and maintain the CRM environment
From the customer's perspective, the total cost of ownership for the first year of owning a traditional CRM application would no doubt be hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention the ongoing annual costs to maintain it. From the CRM application developer's viewpoint, the pool of potential customers is limited to companies that can afford to pay the hefty price tag associated with owning and managing their own copy of the application.

Compare this with the simplified SaaS approach—a company just subscribes to a CRM software service for however many users require access. The company doesn't need to buy any special hardware or software and doesn't need to hire staff to install, configure, patch, monitor, and otherwise maintain operating systems, software, and data. The company's users do nothing more than use inexpensive PCs to load application pages into a standard Web browser and do their job. Consequently, the total cost of the company providing its users with a CRM application drops significantly. For example, one popular on-demand CRM solution, Salesforce, from salesforce.com, sells for as little as $140 per user per year! From the customer's point of view, the bottom line is certainly compelling—unless a company has thousands of users, subscribing to a CRM application is much more cost-effective than paying for the privilege of owning one outright.

Application vendors can also benefit tremendously from a shift to SaaS. Low-cost commodity hardware and open source operating systems facilitate profitable hosting of SaaS applications, provided that the applications are well designed and scale as hundreds or thousands of users subscribe to their services. By passing on the reduced cost to customers, software vendors now have tremendous sales potential from new markets such as small businesses that were traditionally unapproachable with the application ownership model.


Read the rest of this story...

Oracle SaaS Platform

Oracle looks to India for financial services business.

Oracle plans to make its Indian subsidiary a hub for its strategy for the financial services market. I-flex solutions, the Indian banking software subsidiary of Oracle, said Friday that in line with these plans, it will change its name to Oracle Financial Services Ltd.




















The new branding reflects the importance that Oracle attaches to the financial services sector, a notice to the Bombay Stock Exchange quoted Charles Phillips, Oracle’s president, and a director of i-flex, as saying on Friday. Oracle Financial Services will be a focal point for Oracle's investment in innovation and leadership in financial services, Oracle said.

I-flex also announced Friday its plans to acquire the entire stake in Flexcel International, a joint venture it had set up with HDFC Bank in Mumbai to offer its banking software in an application service provider (ASP) model to small banks.

Based in Mumbai, i-flex is a vendor of banking and financial services software and services. It has 790 customers in over 130 countries. Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI),a financial institution in Central America, for example, has recently deployed i-flex’s Flexcube banking software.

Oracle currently owns 81 percent of the equity of i-flex. The change of name is subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals, i-flex said.

The local managers who set up i-flex will however continue to manage the company, a spokesman for i-flex said on Friday.

Oracle acquired from Citigroup's venture capital unit about 40 percent of the equity in i-flex in 2005, and raised its stake in the subsidiary in stages. The acquisition of a stake in i-flex was part of Oracle's move to expand beyond general-purpose ERP (enterprise resource planning) applications and into more industry-specific software, Oracle said at the time.

Oracle also has product development and services centers in India.

Could worry over Oracle earnings mean deals for customers?

A head of a consulting firm that helps Oracle customers cut licensing deals with the enterprise software giant said Friday (28-03) that fallout around Oracle's recent earnings announcement could help clients out at the bargaining table.

"If Oracle is posting fantastic numbers and growth, they tend to play hardball," said Ed Ramirez, president of Software Licensing Consultants, a San Ramon, California, firm. "If earnings are weak, perception is weak, that's good for end users and customers."

Oracle said Wednesday that its third-quarter revenues were up 21 percent to US$5.3 billion compared to the same quarter last year. On the surface, the numbers looked strong, especially in light of the widespread malaise in the U.S. economy, but Oracle still fell slightly short of analysts' estimates and its stock dropped in subsequent days this week.

But Eliot Arlo Colon, president and chief operating officer of Miro Consulting, an Oracle license consulting firm in Fords, New Jersey, didn't go quite as far as Ramirez. "It provides notice to clients that there's a weakness with Oracle," he said. "It gets them excited that maybe there's a possibility for a bigger discount. I don't know if that will play to getting huge concessions from them. It's still a case-by-case basis."

For its part, Oracle downplayed the results and said investors could expect a stronger fourth quarter. During a conference call Wednesday, the company president, Charles Phillips, said "a lot of people have annual buying cycles around our Q4. Customers think they're going to get a better deal if they wait until Q4."

But will they? The answer isn't clear-cut, according to Ramirez and Colon.

For example, while there might be a rush of discounting at the end of the fiscal year, it's difficult to predict how much, Ramirez said: "Everything is triggered by sales people not hitting their quota. In turn, their management doesn't hit their number. That is what triggers it -- it's not necessarily that Oracle as a corporation says, 'We need to do this.' It's a trickle-up effect."

Ramirez, who worked as an area sales manager at Oracle, added that the company can make concessions to customers beyond discounts, such as on various terms and conditions.

Colon offered a different caution, saying that there's far more competition for discounts during such rush periods.

"It's becoming more public that Oracle only has so much bandwidth to process larger deals at the end of the year. The message coming from Oracle field reps now is, 'Don't wait until the end of May, because I won't be able to get you the aggressive discounts.'"

"Once one big deal closes, a sales team may have hit their number and [other customers] get kicked to the second tier," he added. It might be wiser, he said, to "be the first in line, have a good story and play to the weakness of Oracle, which is that they have so many people waiting until the end of the year."

Nailing down a huge influx of complicated licensing deals can be overwhelming, even for a company the size of Oracle, Colon said. "For the first time this year, I was seeing six-figure deals missing the quarter because there wasn't enough time. That never happened in the past."

However, Oracle's sales representatives on the whole have been hard bargainers recently, Ramirez said.

"With all the acquisitions [Oracle has made] a lot of times they realize, 'Where is the customer going to go? What are their options? Before, there was a lot more competition. That's the attitude. 'Where are you going to go? We've got you.'"

Colon agreed that Oracle's buying spree has changed the landscape, but from a different perspective. His firm is now seeing clients order nothing for several months, but then buying up a slew of products at once.

"I've never seen that take off as much as it has in the last six months," Colon said. "The positioning from Oracle from all these acquisitions is, 'Now is the time to bundle and get all these things together.'"

On the flip side, customers are being emboldened, he said. "I'm seeing people asking for higher discounts and an overall lower price because they're dealing with one vendor."

Oracle Announces New Mobile Interoperability with Nokia Devices and Enterprise Software

Oracle Announces New Mobile Interoperability with Nokia Devices and Enterprise Software

Source: WEBWIRE

Oracle and Nokia Deliver Unrivalled Support and Capabilities for Oracle Mobile End-users and Developers.

Oracle announced new mobile interoperability with Nokia devices and technology, as a result of the ongoing cooperation and co-development between the two companies. Oracle has validated the Nokia Intellisync Device Management solution working with Oracle’s Siebel CRM platform, Oracle(r) Database Lite is now available on Symbian Version 9/S60 Version 3 enabling enterprises to mobilize their applications using Nokia devices and Siebel Wireless is now available on the Nokia E90 Communicator, an Eseries device designed for enterprise users.

Since 2003 Oracle and Nokia have leveraged their leadership positions to accelerate the adoption of mobile technology into the enterprise. IT organizations gain maximum benefits from the ability to develop, implement, and manage their mobile applications in a secure and efficient manner, enabling cost savings, increased operational efficiency, and higher customer satisfaction.

Validation of Nokia Intellisync Device Management with the Siebel CRM
Nokia Intellisync Device Management complements deployments of Siebel Wireless and Siebel Handheld mobile applications with advanced device management functionalities such as device configuration, application management including over the air provisioning, asset collection, help desk, theft-loss protection and recovery. In addition to these features, validation of Nokia Intellisync Device Management solution with Siebel Handheld applications enables mobile users to reduce expenses and save time through features allowing them to easily create new users, send and accept new device management profiles, set up GPRS/EDGE network settings and push out URLs to Siebel Wireless that aide in updates or locking out, or wiping devices as needed.

Oracle Database Lite now supports Symbian 9 (S60 v3)
The new Oracle Database Lite now supports Symbian 9 (S60 v3). With Oracle Database Lite, mobile devices can operate in occasionally-connected environments, periodically synchronizing with back-end database servers. Oracle Database Lite also provides centralized application, user and device provisioning, as well as management and mobile application tools, enabling developers to build the latest mobile enterprise applications for the leading mobile platform.

Oracle Siebel Wireless on Nokia E90 Communicator
The Nokia E90 Communicator, developed for the world’s leading smartphone platform S60, includes the benefits of a laptop in a pocket-size device. By supporting the S60 Open Source Software (OSS) browser, Siebel Wireless is available on the Nokia E90. Nokia E90 Communicator provides mobile workers with ubiquitous enterprise users access to Siebel Sales Wireless, Siebel Field Service Wireless, Siebel Partner Relationship Management Wireless and Siebel eService Wireless, providing them maximum flexibility for viewing and editing CRM data.

"Over the past five years, Oracle and Nokia have worked together for one common goal - to achieve seamless interoperability between our products and enable developers and end-users to gain the greatest potential from the use of Oracle and Nokia technologies together" said Anthony Lye, Senior Vice President of CRM Development at Oracle. "Our latest support and capabilities for Siebel CRM Mobile with Nokia technologies and devices helps customers realize further usability, efficiencies, and freedom"

"Our collaboration with Oracle has been to meet the demands of enterprises - making these developments beneficial not only for enterprise customers and end-users, but for the entire mobile industry" said Clyde Foster, Vice President, Software & Services, Nokia. "Nokia Intellisync Device Management is a strategic platform for enterprises and service providers to manage mobility, and I am pleased to say that integrating Siebel Handheld applications brings clear benefits to enterprises"

Oracle Database 11g Launch

Oracle Database 11g Launch
Equitable Auditorium, New York City

The history of information technology is a journey, defined by innovations such as the Internet and grid computing. On July 11 2007, Oracle introduces the latest release of the world's most popular database with the launch of Oracle Database 11g which is designed to help customers innovate and grow their business more quickly by managing their information more effectively. The software also sets new standards for quality of service by delivering secure information at high speed, 24 by 7, on scalable, low cost grids.

Klick here for the 58 minutes video.

Oracle Integrates Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and Oracle’s Demantra

Latest Integration Enables Consumer Goods Companies to Increase Profitability and Efficiently Monitor and Control Trade Spending

* Oracle today announced the general availability of Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Trade Promotions Management powered by Oracle's Demantra.
* By integrating Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12 and Oracle's Demantra 7.2, consumer goods companies are equipped to efficiently monitor and control trade spending, validate compliance, and improve the return on investment of promotional dollars.






* The integrated trade promotion management solution extends the existing JD Edwards EnterpriseOne integrations to Oracle's Demantra Demand Management, providing increased visibility into the impact of promotions on supply chain costs, constraints and performance.
* Oracle's Demantra is being successfully used by more than 50 JD Edwards EnterpriseOne customers across a variety of industries and platforms including Bush Brothers, Dal-Tile, DeRoyal, Mohawk, Pharmavite, Red Gold, Schiff Nutrition, and Tetra Technologies.
* With this announcement, Oracle demonstrates its commitment to preserving customers' investments in existing Oracle Applications while integrating best-in-class capabilities between Oracle's different offerings.

Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and Oracle's Demantra Integration Details

* By integrating the industry-leading predictive trade planning, promotion optimization, and deduction and settlement management functionality of Oracle's Demantra 7.2 with Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12, companies can implement best-in-class trade promotions management processes across their enterprise.
* Supply chain managers can now benefit from increased visibility of promotion data with the integration between JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and Oracle's Demantra's Predictive Trade Planning, Oracle's Demantra Trade Promotion Optimization, and Oracle's Demantra Deduction and Settlement Management.
* This integration features many enhancements that give customers an understanding of the impact of promotions on supply chain costs and constraints in order to optimize supply chain performance. With the ability to execute more accurate volume forecasts, customers are equipped to improve service levels, reduce inventory and lower distribution costs.

Supporting Quotes
* "With Oracle rating the highest on TPM [trade promotion management] strategic vendor importance, the company is a strong contender to close the application gaps in TPM."
* "Typically sales and marketing managers do not get adequate information about the impact of their promotional initiatives on the performance of the supply chain," said Oracle Vice President of SCM Product Strategy, Jon Chorley.

"With the integrated analysis and insight now available between Demantra and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, customers can reduce ineffective promotions to spend more time on profitable campaigns that impact both top and bottom line performance."