Consumers Hit Unprecedented 20 TWh Energy Savings with Oracle Utilities Opower

Press Release

Efficiency programs save enough energy to power San Francisco households for a decade or three million Tesla Model 3s traversing the length of the equator


Redwood Shores, Calif.—Oct 15, 2018

View the infographic

Consumer households supported by Oracle Utilities Opower Energy Efficiency programs have reached more than 20-terawatt hours (TWh) in cumulative energy savings. This equates to enough energy to power San Francisco homes for 10 years, Spain for a month or three million Tesla Model 3s traversing the length of the equator. 

Learn what else 20 TWh in energy savings can power here. 

The digital revolution has enabled consumers to better control everything from how they shop to how they ride to work. Until relatively recently, however, they lacked the ability to effectively manage their energy usage to lessen both their environmental footprint and monthly costs. Opower first introduced its consumer Energy Efficiency programs to the market in 2008. Just ten years later, the 20 TWh milestone is a testament to how utilities and their customers have embraced these programs and transformed their behaviors to significantly reduce energy emissions. 

“Opower revolutionized residential energy efficiency by empowering consumers at every economic level to manage their energy usage with no additional cost,” said Rodger Smith, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Oracle Utilities. “Together, with our utility customers, we have given 15 million consumers access to actionable data that is enabling them to take charge of their energy consumption. With 20 TWh of savings, we have only scratched the surface of what’s possible. It is inspiring to imagine the impact these programs will continue to have in creating a more sustainable energy future for everyone.” 

The Opower energy efficiency programs, including Home Energy Reports, are part of a larger Oracle Utilities demand-side management product suite that includes Peak Management, Proactive Alerts, and energy management web tools. Working in tandem, these solutions are designed to inform and motivate consumers to better control their home energy consumption and cost, while allowing utilities to proactively meet regulatory requirements, decrease the cost to serve, reduce call center volume, and improve customer satisfaction.

Exelon’s Utilities – Driving Energy Awareness and Efficiency for Millions of Customers

Exelon’s utility companies (Atlantic City Electric, BGE, ComEd, Delmarva Power, PECO and Pepco) are committed to helping their customers save energy and have been key innovators and collaborators in reaching the 20 TWh efficiency milestone. As part of their comprehensive Business Intelligence and Data Analytics strategy, the company is driving consumer engagement and conservation efforts with a multi-pronged approach that includes Opower Home Energy Report programs and the first application of behavioral science in demand response through Opower Peak Management. 

Today, Exelon’s Home Energy Report programs reach more than 3.6 million customers and have generated 2.85 TWh in total savings. Their Peak Management programs, which began at Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) in 2011, now touch 1.1 million BGE and 270,000 ComEd customers. The combined Peak Management programs have generated more than 1.9 GW in total demand reduction during critical peak periods, resulting in lower costs for consumers and increasing the overall reliability of the grid. 

Collectively this impact is powering a cleaner and brighter future for Exelon’s utility customers and communities. Learn more about Exelon’s journey here.

The Future of Energy Efficiency

This 20 TWh milestone represents a solid step forward to a larger, more sustainable future for participating utility companies and their customers. Currently, Oracle Utilities Opower programs are on track to deliver 4 TWh of savings annually, which is equivalent to the power generated yearly by the Hoover Dam. 

By comparison, Opower’s 20 TWh achievement is seven times greater than the next closest ranking energy efficiency provider in Navigant Research’s 2018 Home Energy Management Leaderboard Report. 

“In just two years, Oracle Utilities Opower has gone from 11 TWh energy savings to 20 TWh – a milestone no other software provider has come remotely close to,” added Smith. “Working closely with our utility partners, we will continue to redefine how consumers reach their full energy saving potential, with innovative, scalable solutions that drive behavior change at the time and location that have the most impact.”

• More Information  

• Oracle Utilities Opower Energy Efficiency
• Infographic
• Follow us on Twitter and the Oracle Utilities blog

Contact Info

Kristin Reeves

Oracle

+1.925.787.6744

kris.reeves@oracle.com

Oracle Answers the Call to Help Cities Improve Citizen Services

Press Release 

San Jose and other cities turn to Oracle to transform non-emergency services 

Redwood Shores, Calif.—Oct 16, 2018 

The City of San Jose selected Oracle Service Cloud to launch a new 311 service that could help make it safer, more inclusive, sustainable and user-friendly. 

Cities across the country have selected Oracle Service Cloud to rethink traditional 311 services and provide the best possible citizen experience. With Oracle Service Cloud, cities including The City of San Jose, The City of Albuquerque, Sacramento County and The City of Fort Wayne have been able to transform the way they engage with citizens for all non-emergency inquiries and services. 

The City of San Jose is the nation’s 10th largest city, with approximately one million residents. To support its goal of becoming America’s most innovative city by 2020, The City of San Jose selected Oracle Service Cloud to launch a new 311 service that could help make it safer, more inclusive, sustainable and user-friendly. 

“The Oracle Service Cloud platform has enabled the City to more effectively respond to resident’s service requests,” says Desiree Jafferies, San Jose’s customer contact center manager. “It has transformed our customer experience, shifting away from a reactive response to a more proactive, real-time, data-driven service environment.” 

The City of Albuquerque supports more than 900,000 citizens. To improve efficiency and provide its citizens with the best possible service, The City of Albuquerque selected Oracle Service Cloud to support its 311 service. With Oracle Service Cloud, The City of Albuquerque has been able implement a new conversational interface that allows residents to ask the Alexa voice-activated system to help with a range of requests from finding a lost pet to scheduling a large package pickup, removing graffiti, getting rid of litter or reporting an abandoned car. 

“This service allows us to offer residents innovative channels to engage with their city government,” stated Mayor Tim Keller. “Alexa’s conversational user interface is convenient for the community and will help us make the most effective and efficient use of 311 resources. We’re integrating emerging technologies with government to ensure that people from all walks of life in Albuquerque have easy ways to participate with their City and utilize City services.” 

Sacramento County supports more than 1.5 million citizens. To provide the best possible service and support to internal agencies and other public constituents, Sacramento County selected Oracle Service Cloud to integrate data from different sources and optimize how residents interact with its 311 service across channels. With Oracle Service Cloud, Sacramento County has been able to automate previously manual processes to free up its communications center staff to focus more on customer service, collaboration and public engagement. 

The City of Fort Wayne, Indiana is home to more than 250,000 citizens. To capture the voice of its citizens and publicly hold city departments and officials accountable, The City of Fort Wayne selected Oracle Service Cloud to modernize its 311 service. With Oracle Service Cloud, The City of Fort Wayne has been able to reduce costs by increasing self-service channels and enabling citizens to engage on their preferred channels, while also reducing average wait times by approximately 60 percent. 

“With Oracle, we have been able to connect seven Divisions with 16 different departments and change the game by unifying the entire city’s metrics into one performance scorecard. This not only holds departments accountable for their service performance, but it has also enabled us to move from a reactive to a proactive organization,” said Eric Harris 311 Call Center Manager, The City of Fort Wayne. “Now through our unified system, citizens are able to take a picture of a pothole with their smartphone and we are able to fill it within four hours. The city has also been able to reduce agent training time from three months to three weeks.” 

Oracle Service Cloud is part of Oracle Customer Experience (CX) Cloud Suite, which empowers organizations to take a smarter approach to customer experience management and business transformation initiatives. By providing a trusted business platform that connects data, experiences and outcomes, Oracle CX Cloud Suite helps customers reduce IT complexity, deliver innovative customer experiences and achieve predictable and tangible business results. 

Contact Info 

Danielle Cormier-Smith

Oracle

+1.914.441.4896

danielle@positive-comms.com

Oracle Hot Topics: Bug DPLOAD DOESN'T CREATE THE SHARED OBJECTS ACROSS ALL PDBS

Bugs

Bug	Product Area	Bug ID	Last Updated
DPLOAD DOESN'T CREATE THE SHARED OBJECTS ACROSS ALL PDBS	Oracle Database - Enterprise Edition	23321125	Tue, 16 Oct 2018 06:27 GMT-06:00

Knowledge Articles

Knowledge Article	Product Area	Last Updated
Bug 28633255 - LINUX: Include ACFS Kernel Modules for OL6 and OL7 RHCK	Oracle Database - Enterprise Edition	Tue, 16 Oct 2018 04:39 GMT-06:00

Oracle Critical Patch Update for October 2018

October 16, 2018 Dear Oracle Customer, The Critical Patch Update for October 2018 was released on October 16th, 2018. Oracle strongly recommends applying the patches as soon as possible. If you are new to this process, please review Oracle's Security Fixing Policies and the Critical Patch Update Advisory. After reviewing these resources, if you are unable to determine if you require a software update, or how to apply it, please contact Oracle Support. The Critical Patch Update Advisory is the starting point for relevant information. It includes the list of products affected, pointers to obtain the patches, a summary of the security vulnerabilities for each product suite, and links to other important documents. Supported products that are not listed in the "Affected Products and Components" section of the advisory do not require new patches to be applied. Also, it is essential to review the Critical Patch Update supporting documentation referenced in the Advisory before applying patches, as this is where you can find important pertinent information. Critical Patch Update Advisories are available at the following location: Oracle Technology Network: http://www.oracle.com/SecurityAlerts Oracle Cloud Customers should review: http://www.oracle.com/SecurityAlerts#cloud The Critical Patch Update Advisory for October 2018 is available at the following location: Oracle Technology Network: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/security-advisory/cpuoct2018-4428296.html Important information can also be found at: https://blogs.oracle.com/security/ Oracle's Security Fixing Policies are available at the following location: http://www.oracle.com/support/assurance/vulnerability-remediation/security-fixing.html The next four dates for Critical Patch Updates are: January 15, 2019  April 16, 2019  July 16, 2019  October 15, 2019  Thank you, Customer Support of Oracle Corporation http://www.oracle.com/us/support/contact/index.html

Inaugural Startup Class Collaborates on Enterprise Growth and Cloud Innovation at Oracle’s First U.S. Startup Hub

Press Release 

Austin, Texas hub welcomes six startups to the global program and Capital Factory co-working space 

Redwood Shores, Calif.—Oct 11, 2018 

Oracle today announced the first class of startups joining the Oracle Global Startup Ecosystem hub in Austin, Texas. Announced earlier this year, Austin is the program’s first U.S. hub location. The six startups in the hub’s inaugural class will work closely with Oracle’s research and development and enterprise sales teams to enable scalable growth and drive cloud-based innovation. 

Oracle’s global startup program offers personalized experiences for startups, mentoring from technical and business experts, state-of-the-art technology, free Oracle Cloud credits, and access to Oracle’s more than 430,000 global customers, as well partners and investors. Unlike traditional accelerator programs, Oracle’s is driven by the R&D team and does not take equity. 

“In the global marketplace, one size does not fit all, and that’s especially true for today’s startup ecosystem,” said Reggie Bradford, senior vice president, Oracle Global Startup Ecosystem. “That’s why we’ve taken a different approach – reimagining the startup-enterprise relationship and offering personalized experiences for the startups to achieve true collaboration, co-development and co-innovation.” 

Selected from a competitive and diverse pool of applicants, the six startups joining the Austin-based hub include: 

· data.world is a platform for modern data teamwork. Its smart data catalog can wake up the hidden data workforce within every enterprise, unify silos, and create data-driven cultures faster. 

· Eventador is a fully managed, enterprise-grade stream processing as a service platform that addresses a critical business problem: to alleviate the complexities and enable the building of applications that use real-time data at their core. Eventador enables developers to quickly create and painlessly manage real-time data pipelines to gain time-to-market, actionable insights and technology advantages. 

· Pilosa enables real-time retrieval of massive, fragmented datasets. Pilosa introduces the concept of splitting the index from the database by making the index a first-class citizen in the modern technology stack. Pilosa’s software can store a knowledge representation of underlying data in memory, making it orders of magnitude smaller and unimaginably fast. 

· ROIKOI built one of the first talent recommendation graphs. Companies use ROIKOI software and services to hire a more diverse set of candidates more efficiently than they could through sourcing platforms or job boards, and can find referral-quality candidates at a scale greater than traditional referral platforms. 

· Senseye is building a direct link between humans and computers. Senseye’s technology can read the brain wirelessly, providing a vast array of use cases and solutions for many key industries. They are working to enable you to use the human brain tomorrow the way a mouse and keyboard are used today. 

· Transmute is a decentralized app engine for enterprise development teams that can configure decentralized applications to work seamlessly with public and private clouds. The inevitable rise of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and the resulting shift to decentralized applications will be as disruptive to enterprise IT as the transition to cloud computing. Transmute’s mission is to help customers use decentralization when and where it delivers real value, using code they’ve already written. 

“The six startups entering our inaugural Austin program are ready to scale innovative enterprise technologies, and we are looking forward to being a catalyst for their next phase of growth,” said JD Weinstein, head of the Oracle Global Startup Ecosystem in Austin. “We will work closely with each startup to create a personalized journey that enables them to tap into Oracle’s rich enterprise ecosystem, cloud solutions, global customers, and market expertise.” 

The startups will work out of Oracle’s hub at Capital Factory and also benefit from Capital Factory’s network of local entrepreneurs, prominent CEOs, venture capitalists, corporate partners, and government officials. 

The Oracle Global Startup Ecosystem enables startups to tailor their program experience based on their unique journey. The global program offers an immersive co-working environment, a virtual-style experience, and an approach that is a hybrid of the two. The Oracle Global Startup Ecosystem has co-working spaces in Austin, Bangalore, Bristol, Delhi, Mumbai, Paris, Sao Paolo, Singapore and Tel Aviv, and works with startups virtually in many other locations around the world. 

Startup Founder Quotes 

· “We are honored to be selected into this exclusive startup program. Oracle can help us continue to innovate, scale, and improve our ability to help enterprises create data-driven cultures faster.” – Brett Hurt, CEO and Co-Founder, data.world
· “Oracle can help accelerate our ability to scale with its vast global resources and technical and business expertise. It’s an incredibly exciting time for our company, as every day we see new real-time use cases and customers building increasingly complex line of business streaming applications.” – Kenny Gorman, Co-founder and CEO, Eventador
· "We are incredibly excited to be given the opportunity to access Oracle’s vast global resources, technologies, and customer ecosystem. At this stage in our growth, this program is exactly what we need to help enterprises serve analytical type queries in real-time at scale." – HO Maycotte, CEO, Pilosa
· "Oracle understands what we're working to accomplish and can provide us the resources and expertise across its cloud solutions, sales support, recruiting, and global customer ecosystem. It's an honor to be selected to this global program, and we look forward to a long-standing relationship with Oracle." – Andy Wolfe, CEO, ROIKOI
· “Oracle can help accelerate our capabilities to scale with its leading cloud technologies and customer ecosystem. It’s an incredibly exciting time for our growth, as we continue to push the boundaries of neuroscience and technology.” – David Zakariaie CEO Senseye
· “Being part of this global startup program will be invaluable for us. Not only will it allow us to work directly with Oracle Cloud and Oracle engineers to optimize our enterprise platform offering, but we will also benefit from Oracle’s vast global resources, customer ecosystem, and business expertise.” – Karyl Fowler, CEO, Transmute 

Additional Resources

o Global Startup Ecosystemo Oracle Global Startup Ecosystem Blog

 Follow Oracle Startup Cloud Accelerator on Facebook and Twitter

Contact Info 

Julia Allyn

Oracle Corporate Communications

+1.650.607.1338

julia.allyn@oracle.com

Oracle and NVIDIA Bring the Power of the Cloud to the Next Generation of Analytics, Machine Learning and AI

Press Release 

First public cloud provider to support NVIDIA HGX-2 to give customers access to a unified data science, HPC and AI computing architecture 

Munich, Germany – GPU Technology Conference—Oct 10, 2018 

Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) and NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today announced that Oracle is the first public cloud provider to support the NVIDIA HGX-2TM platform on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, to meet the needs of the next generation of analytics, machine learning and AI. The companies are also announcing the general availability of support for GPU-accelerated deep learning and HPC containers from the NVIDIA GPU Cloud™ (NGC) container registry on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. 

From enabling autonomous vehicles to driving global climate simulations, rapid progress in AI and HPC has transformed entire industries while also demanding massive increases in complexity and compute power. HGX-2 is designed for multi-precision computing to accelerate the most demanding applications by unleashing 2 petaflops of computing power and half a terabyte (TB) of total GPU memory with 16 NVIDIA Tesla® V100 Tensor Core GPUs interconnected with NVSwitch™. Supporting HGX-2 on both Oracle Cloud Infrastructure bare-metal and virtual machine instances, Oracle and NVIDIA are helping customers solve the greatest AI and HPC challenges for the most complex workloads. 

Oracle is also announcing support for RAPIDS™ open-source software introduced today by NVIDIA for executing end-to-end data science training pipelines accelerated on NVIDIA GPUs. RAPIDS is now generally available on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure via NGC. RAPIDS dramatically accelerates data science pipelines by moving workflows onto the GPU. This optimizes machine learning training with more iterations for better model accuracy. Data scientists can quickly integrate RAPIDS with hassle-free integration and minimal code changes, enabling them to significantly accelerate the Python data science toolchain. With this new offering and support for NGC containers, Oracle and NVIDIA are allowing customers to easily deploy containerized applications and frameworks for HPC, data science and AI and run them seamlessly on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. 

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is also working with NVIDIA to support RAPIDS across its platform, including the Oracle Data Science Cloud, to further accelerate customers’ end to-end data science workflows. RAPIDS software runs seamlessly on the Oracle Cloud, allowing customers to support their HPC, AI and data science needs, all while taking advantage of the portfolio of GPU instances available on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. 

“We are very excited about this collaboration with NVIDIA. As the world of computing continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible, we are providing our customers with the software, tools and cloud infrastructure needed to solve the most complex challenges,” said Clay Magouyrk, senior vice president, software development, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. “Whether you are an engineer, data scientist, researcher or developer, we are bringing the power of compute and cloud to your fingertips. 

“This new collaboration with Oracle will help fuel incredible innovation across a wide range of industries,” said Ian Buck, vice president and general manager of Accelerated Computing at NVIDIA. “By taking advantage of NVIDIA’s latest technologies, Oracle is well positioned to meet surges in demand for GPU acceleration for deep learning, high-performance computing, data analytics and machine learning.” 

Supporting Resources

· 

Oracle blog: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure & NVIDIA announce HGX-2 & NVIDIA Data Science Platform

Learn more about HPC on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

Contact Info 

Danielle Tarp

Oracle

+1.650.506.2905

danielle.tarp@oracle.com

Oracle Study Identifies Key Services Opportunities, Including Smart Cities and Connected and Autonomous Vehicles

Press Release 

Survey Highlights 5G Adoption as Catalyst for Advanced Digital Service Ecosystems 

Redwood Shores, Calif.—Oct 10, 2018 

Digital services dominate the current and future strategies of telecoms and enterprise companies across industries, according to a new Oracle Communications survey. In the Digital Services: Disrupt or Be Disrupted report, Oracle found nearly all organizations surveyed (96 percent) have already implemented, or are planning to implement, digital services in the next 12 months. Almost half (45 percent) are looking to deploy digital customer engagement tools within their mobile apps and websites to further advance their digital transformation in the same timeframe. 

In September 2018, Oracle surveyed 292 individuals with decision-making authority for IT and communications software in their companies. Seventy-three percent of respondents were at the President/CxO or Director/Department head level. A total of 18 industries, from 14 countries, were represented, with half of those surveyed from telecom and the other half from computer software/equipment, education, healthcare, and manufacturing. 

“The digital opportunity is clearly recognized by companies across all industries,” said Doug Suriano, senior vice president, general manager, Oracle Communications. “While telecom companies have significant experience providing digital services, they face the challenge of delivering differentiated new revenue streams in an agile manner. Other industries, who in many cases are beginning to offer digital subscriptions and services enabled by physical products, also find they need more sophisticated and modern digital services monetization systems to capitalize on their digital opportunity.” 

Racing to Deliver Improved Digital Experiences 

5G will accelerate opportunities: When looking to the future of high-speed, real-time, sensor-enabled digital services, respondents indicated that sensor-driven services such as those for smart cities and connected and autonomous vehicles are the top two opportunities for digital service ecosystems enabled by 5G technology. The number of non-telecoms companies exploring smart cities opportunities will rise from 34 percent today to 50 percent when 5G is enabled. The connected and autonomous vehicle opportunity will rise from 29 percent today to 46 percent when 5G is enabled. This illustrates the cross-industry value for such digital service ecosystems enabled by 5G adoption. 

Speed and agility are key: Ninety-one percent of respondents prioritize speed to market over a fully integrated IT environment, with 69 percent preferring a lightweight solution that can be deployed quickly over a fully featured solution that takes much longer to deploy. Speed to market is critical, with half believing that launching new digitally enabled services should take days – not weeks or months. 

Not launching services reduces competitiveness and risks disruption: Almost two-thirds (65 percent) reported reduced revenue growth as the greatest concern of not launching digitally enabled services, followed by 55 percent who said they will be unable to competitively differentiate in the market. Half are concerned about loss of brand perception and relevance. 

More sophisticated pricing models are essential: For companies to drive sustainable market differentiation and revenue growth, the survey indicated that more sophisticated pricing models for digital services beyond simple subscriptions will be essential. Companies recognized the importance of packaging and bundling multiple products and/or digital services to create more compelling propositions. Respondents also emphasized the importance of usage/consumption-based charging followed closely by outcome/performance-based charging for such propositions. 

Infographic

Access the Report

Contact Info 

Katie Barron

Oracle

+1.202.904.1138

katie.barron@oracle.com

La persona que pudo haber salvado a @Oracle se fue

Por: Sten Verterli de https://www.vesterli.com
18 de septiembre de 2018

Oracle Tool WatchOracle Cloudvesterli

Thomas Kurian, que solía ser el técnico de Oracle, acaba de dejar la empresa. Dijo que se estaría tomando un "tiempo libre prolongado de Oracle", mientras que Oracle está tratando de dar la impresión de que Thomas regresará en breve.

Eso es una mala noticia para toda la comunidad de Oracle.

"Son noticias más graves de lo que cualquiera en esta tierra puede entender, ...".

Aragorn, en El señor de los anillos

En los viejos tiempos, cuando el programa Oracle ACE todavía podía permitirse invitar a todos los directores de ACE a una reunión en Redwood Shores antes de OpenWorld, la reunión con Thomas Kurian siempre fue un momento destacado. Constantemente me quedé impresionado con la comprensión de Thomas de los detalles técnicos en el portafolio de productos de Oracle y sentí que Oracle estaría en buenas manos cuando se hiciera cargo de Larry.

El rumor es que Thomas quería que el software de Oracle se ejecutara en Amazon y Azure, pero Larry no lo permite. Larry está enamorado del sofisticado hardware Exa-this y Exa-that de Oracle y ha pasado años atacando a Amazon, por lo que es natural que quiera que todo el mundo se ejecute en el hardware de Oracle. 

Thomas, por otro lado, es el líder de 35,000 ingenieros de software y quiere ver que el gran software que su equipo ha construido se use tanto como sea posible.

Pensarías que Oracle podría saberlo mejor. Observaron a Sun pegarse obstinadamente a su sofisticado hardware hasta que estuvieron casi en la ruina y pudieron venderlo a bajo precio, pero ahora Oracle sigue la misma estrategia.

"Creo que Thomas tiene razón, pero Larry es dueño de la compañía."

¿Qué significa esto para usted como profesional de Oracle? Significa que Oracle ha perdido una oportunidad más para volverse relevante en la nube, y el tiempo se está agotando a medida que Amazon y Azure avanzan más. No apueste su carrera como desarrollador, DBA o gerente de TI en ningún producto de Oracle Cloud.

Por supuesto, la base de datos estará disponible por décadas aún ...

Esta publicación apareció originalmente en el boletín de Oracle Tool Watch.

Leader of International Investment Fraud Sentenced to 30 Years in Federal Prison

PHOENIX – On Sept. 22, 2018, James Jeffrey Hinkeldey, 66, of Scottsdale, Ariz., was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Steven P. Logan to 30 years and five months in federal prison. Earlier this year, a federal jury convicted Hinkeldey of conspiracy, wire and mail fraud, money laundering, and aggravated identity theft charges stemming from his role as one of the leaders in an $18 million investment fraud affecting 225 victims. 

“Through fraud, this defendant stole the life savings from members of our community, many of whom were close to retirement; his lengthy prison sentence is well-deserved,” stated Elizabeth A. Strange, First Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Arizona. “Our office will continue to work closely with the FBI to prosecute financial predators like Hinkeldey.”

“Considering there were hundreds of victims and millions of dollars lost, it is fitting that James Hinkeldey‘s sentence is one of the highest federal white collar sentences in the District of Arizona,” said Michael DeLeon, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Phoenix Division. “We are pleased that the defendants in this case are being held accountable for their crimes and that Hinkeldey and his co-conspirator were ordered to pay restitution to the victims. The FBI would like to thank the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office for their work on this case. We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to investigate and prosecute those who commit complex financial crimes.”

From 2006 to 2012, Hinkeldey and several others solicited millions of dollars from victims for purported investment in a variety of projects and companies, including land development in Mexico, recycling companies in Las Vegas and Chicago, and distressed real estate in Phoenix. Hinkeldey and his co-conspirators promoted their fraudulent investment schemes in seminars, magazine articles, radio broadcasts, and private offering documents to give the fraudulent investments the appearance of legitimacy. 

In reality, the solicitations and offering documents were riddled with false statements, including the education and experience of Hinkeldey and his co-conspirators, the true ownership of property involved in the projects, and the feasibility of the so-called guaranteed returns. Ultimately, Hinkeldey and his co-conspirators used investor funds not only to line their own pockets, but also to make Ponzi payments to create the facade of a successful business. 

Late last year, Hinkeldey’s partner in the conspiracy, Jason Mogler, formerly of Phoenix, Ariz., was sentenced to 24 years and 4 months in federal prison for his role in the fraud. Hinkeldey and Mogler were also ordered to pay restitution to the victims for losses they incurred.

The investigation in this case was conducted by the Phoenix Division of the FBI. The prosecution was handled by Monica Klapper and Peter Sexton, Assistant U.S. Attorneys, District of Arizona, Phoenix.

CASE NUMBER: CR-15-01118-PHX-SPL

RELEASE NUMBER: 2018-121_Hinkeldey

Survey: Lack of Confidence in Clinical Trial Data Delaying Drug Development

Press Release

Costly data preparation, slow data reconciliation and poor data quality hindering drug development efforts for life-saving therapies

Redwood Shores, Calif.—Sep 24, 2018

Pharmaceutical companies share significant concerns over their ability to bring more drugs to market faster due to clinical data challenges. A new global study, commissioned by Oracle Health Sciences and conducted by Pharma Intelligence, revealed that 57 percent of the clinical researchers surveyed believe that their clinical data issues result in trial delays. 

In addition to trial delays, 81 percent of respondents cited data governance issues as the biggest challenge in meeting regulatory compliance. The top three data issues according to survey respondents were duplicate data/inconsistent data, data quality and data integrity/traceability. 

“Data governance is our top concern because clinical data quality issues can hinder a trial’s completion,” said Melonie Longan, Director, Data Operations, Functional Services, Premier Research. Premier Research is a CRO serving biotechnology customers who are researching therapies related to analgesia, dermatology, hematology, oncology, neuroscience, pediatrics, and rare disease. 

When asked what the top three operational challenges were with their clinical trial data, 51 percent cited data completeness, 45 percent said data quality and 43 percent, data cleaning. 

“The kind of clinical data quality issues such as those highlighted in this report can have significant negative impacts,” said Julie Barenholtz, Principal Clinical Data Manager, Cytel Inc. “As a data company, we are always looking for ways to improve the quality of the data and process it efficiently so that patients have access to treatments as quickly as possible.” Founded in 1987, Cytel is a multinational contract research organization (CRO) known for its pioneering work in statistical science and the design and implementation of adaptive clinical trials. 

Not surprisingly, over three-fourths of respondents cited inconsistent data and missing patient data as the most critical clinical data problems to catch in clinical trials. 

“Clinical teams are forced to spend time cleaning data instead of analyzing it, and they can’t always see the entire picture of what is available to them; this delays the ability to make critical decisions about the trial and holds up regulatory submission,” said Steve Rosenberg, General Manager, Oracle Health Sciences. “Clinical researchers shouldn’t have to spend time and resources on fixing data issues that technology was built to handle. Technology can, and should, be used to eliminate unnecessary manual intervention and mitigate risk so we can get therapies in the hands of patients who are waiting.” 

The top three risks highlighted by the research include the need for additional data reconciliation; incomplete data to determine efficacy and patient replacements. 

“Wasting precious time reconciling clinical data issues can be detrimental and costly to our customers,” said Vicki Gashwiler, Associate Director, Strategic Development & Market Access, MedTech Division for Novella Clinical. “Our top concern is proactive data management and data monitoring to reduce the risk of clinical data quality issues slowing down a trial. These delays can have significant financial implications for our customers.” 

About the Survey 

The survey was conducted by Pharma Intelligence and sponsored by Oracle Health Sciences and ran from the beginning of August 2018 into September 2018. The largest percentage of responses came from clinical researchers, data scientists and clinical programmers from biopharma organizations and a small percentage of medical device companies and Contract Research Organizations. Respondents were from around the globe with 61 percent from North America, 20 percent from Asia Pacific and 17 percent from Europe. 

Additional Resources

Download the full research report

Learn more about Data Management Workbench
Join the live webcast featuring experts from Oracle Health Sciences and Pharma Intelligence to understand how to prevent data quality issues from interrupting clinical trial progress on October 3, 2018 at 11 am EDT

Contact Info

Valerie Beaudett
Oracle
+1 650.400.7833
valerie.beaudett@oracle.com

NetSuite Launches Banking as a Service to Tackle New Era of Banking

Press Release 

Unique cloud-based approach enables banking institutions to differentiate services and enhance customer experience while also expanding the financial services offered directly to NetSuite customers 

San Mateo, Calif.—Sep 25, 2018 

To help banking institutions keep pace with evolving business and customer demands, Oracle NetSuite today announced NetSuite Banking as a Service. A unique open banking approach, NetSuite Banking as a Service strengthens bank-to-customer relationships and helps banks create new business models and revenue streams with end-to-end business process automation that is fast, reliable and provides strong security controls. 

With innovative fintech providers reshaping the financial services industry, banks need to rethink traditional business processes to adapt to a new era of banking. In fact, according to Forrester Research’s 2018 banking technology predictions, “More than 50% of banks will fail to exploit open banking, starting down the slow, painful path to becoming an unintentional utility.” To be successful in this new digital reality, banks must turn to open banking solutions to differentiate their services and convert customer data into a strategic advantage. 

“Customers are demanding deeper relationships with financial institutions and as banks have struggled to meet this demand, new fintech providers have emerged to fill the gap,” said Jason Maynard, senior vice president of strategy and marketing, Oracle NetSuite Global Business Unit. “NetSuite Banking as a Service closes that gap and enables banks to provide their customers with a digital experience that we, as consumers, now expect. With NetSuite, banks finally have the means to offer the right services to enhance the customer experience and ultimately increase revenue.” 

NetSuite leads the cloud financials / enterprise resource planning (ERP) industry by extending existing ERP solutions to integrate bank processes. From cash forecasting, to trade finance, instant business loans and credit lines, NetSuite Banking as a Service allows banks to leverage their assets to offer these features as part of their own services to meet growing customer expectations. NetSuite customers will benefit from direct access to financial services such as embedded payments, reconciliation and lending delivered as an extension of their ERP. This will help increase operational efficiency and improve workflows, driving down cost and creating peace of mind for NetSuite customers. 

For additional information on NetSuite Banking as a Service, please contact BaaS@netsuite.com. 

Supporting Quotes

· “One of the most exciting categories in the financial services market is banking as a service. This uber category creates big opportunities across the infrastructure, platform, and fintech app level,” said Ray Wang, principal analyst and founder, Constellation Research, Inc.
“Providing our clients the ability to seamlessly connect to J.P. Morgan is part of our overall transaction banking strategy,” said Jason Tiede, Head of Innovation, J.P. Morgan Treasury Services. “We are excited to offer connectivity to NetSuite’s ERP system which will facilitate a better, more efficient experience for our clients.”
"The Banking as a Service helps banks regain control over the customer experience, increase revenue opportunities by connecting efficiently with their corporate clients and getting access to new customers and real-time trade data," said Rob Barnes, CEO of TradeIX. "On the other side, customers using Oracle NetSuite have a single access channel to connect to existing and new financial institutions, thus widening the range of funding opportunities." 

Contact Info 

Danielle Tarp

Oracle Corporation

+1 650.506.2905

danielle.tarp@oracle.com

Oracle Boosts Software Development Productivity with New Java Release

Press Release

JDK 11 first Long Term Support release under new six-month cadence

Redwood Shores, Calif.—Sep 25, 2018

Continuing its commitment to deliver a regular cadence of Java innovations and updates to the community, Oracle today announced the general availability of Java SE 11 (JDK11). JDK 11 brings a number of new developer productivity enhancements as well as support for modern cryptographic and Internet standards, including TLS 1.3 and HTTP/2. 

The first Long Term Support (LTS) update under Oracle’s six-month release schedule announced last year, JDK 11 is the result of extensive collaboration between Oracle engineers and members of the worldwide Java developer community via the OpenJDK Community and the JCP. Since the release of Java SE 8, the community has collaborated on more than 100 new enhancements that were added through JDK 9, 10, and 11. 

“TLS 1.3 was recently approved and it's fantastic news that Java SE 11 will support it right away,” said Jim Manico, co-author of Iron Clad Java and founder of Manicode Security. “The new Java release cycle for Java SE means that important security protocols and other standards such as TLS 1.3 can be released and adopted rapidly, giving application developers more tools to write secure software with the world’s most popular language - Java!” 

Customers can now migrate from Java SE 8 to Java SE 11 at the pace that best meets their unique business needs, backed by Oracle’s Long Term Support. Oracle will offer its customers security and bug-fixing updates for JDK 11 through 2026, with the next LTS release scheduled for September 2021. 

“Thanks to continuous improvements by Oracle and the Java Community, the JVM remains the best platform for building applications,” said Rafael Winterhalter, from Scienta Norway and creator of the popular Byte Buddy code generation and manipulation library for Java. “The Java SE 11 release gives me confidence as we see the benefits of the module system taking hold, making Java applications more encapsulated and transparent. This is crucial in times where applications become increasingly complex and rely on growing numbers of dependencies. Newer features being explored like 'nestmates' provide great promise of improved startup and compilation performance going forward”. 

Key features in Java 11 include:

· Nest-based access controls: eliminates the need for compilers to insert accessibility-broadening bridge methods.
· Dynamic class-file constants: reduces the cost and disruption of creating new forms of materializable class-file constants and offers broader options for expressivity and performance.
· ZGC: a completely passive GC implementation with a bounded allocation limit and the lowest latency overhead possible.
· Flight Recorder: low overhead data collection framework for troubleshooting Java applications and the HotSpot JVM.

“The LTS model releases enable our customers to migrate from one well-supported Java SE LTS release to the next at their own pace, while at the same time allowing the Java developer ecosystem to get access to improvements faster than before,” said Georges Saab, Vice President, Software Development, Java Platform Group at Oracle. “Together with the introduction of Oracle Java SE Subscription, customers now have an easy way to benefit from access to regular releases of tested and certified performance, stability, and security updates, directly from Oracle.” 

Java SE Subscription is Oracle’s low-cost and predictable offering to manage Oracle Java SE installations across enterprises. To learn more about JDK 11, visit the Java PM blog and see the full list of features here. 

To see these innovations in action, join Oracle Code One, Oracle’s inaugural full-stack developer conference, October 22-25, 2018 in San Francisco. Register at: https://www.oracle.com/code-one

Java is the world’s most popular programming language, with over 12 million developers running Java. Java is also the #1 developer choice for cloud, with over 21 billion cloud-connected Java virtual machines. 

Contact Info

Alex Shapiro
Oracle
+1.415.608.5044
alex.shapiro@oracle.com

Oracle Hot Topics: CONTROL FILE GETS CORRUPTED

Bugs

Bug	Product Area	Bug ID	Last Updated
CONTROL FILE GETS CORRUPTED	Oracle Database - Enterprise Edition	14281768	Sun, 23 Sep 2018 06:14 GMT-06:00

Knowledge Articles

Knowledge Article	Product Area	Last Updated
Datapatch is failed by "Queryable inventory could not determine the current opatch status"	Oracle Database - Enterprise Edition	Fri, 21 Sep 2018 03:59 GMT-06:00

Oracle Hot Topics: Bug ORA-39126, ORA-1427 ON EXPDP

Bugs

Bug	Product Area	Bug ID	Last Updated
ORA-39126, ORA-1427 ON EXPDP	Oracle Database - Enterprise Edition	20476776	Mon, 24 Sep 2018 10:27 GMT-06:00

Knowledge Articles

Knowledge Article	Product Area	Last Updated
Installing or Running TFA fails with "Can't locate Data/Dumper.pm in @INC (@INC contains" error	Oracle Database Exadata Cloud Machine Oracle Database Cloud Service Oracle Database Exadata Express Cloud Service Oracle Database Cloud Exadata Service Oracle Cloud Infrastructure - Database Service Oracle Database - Enterprise Edition Oracle Database Cloud Schema Service Oracle Database Backup Service	Mon, 24 Sep 2018 03:31 GMT-06:00

Oracle Eloqua Innovations Accelerate Lead Generation and Increase Conversion Rates

Press Release 

New content creation, sales tools and auditing capabilities help marketers increase efficiency and creativity 

Redwood Shores, Calif. —Sep 25, 2018 

To help marketers accelerate lead generation and increase conversion rates, Oracle today announced a series of updates to Oracle Eloqua. The latest innovations within Oracle Eloqua help marketers communicate with their prospects and customers as efficiently and easily as possible by introducing new content creation, sales tools and auditing capabilities. 

“In order to drive sales and strengthen brand and customer loyalty, B2B marketers increasingly have to deliver irresistible, consistent and connected experiences to customers wherever they are and however they choose to engage,” said Pierre Custeau, VP, product management, Oracle Eloqua. “To help our customers meet these increasing expectations, we are focused on delivering innovations within Eloqua that bring efficiency and creativity to the way marketers work. With the addition of powerful new content creation, sales tools and auditing capabilities, we are continuing to set the industry standard for marketing automation.” 

Part of Oracle Marketing Cloud, Eloqua is a B2B marketing automation platform that helps marketing teams nurture prospects through email marketing and cross-channel marketing. 

The new enhancements to Oracle Eloqua enable customers to: 

· Quickly and efficiently create compelling and creative landing pages: A new Eloqua Landing Page Editor enables marketers to build out-of-the box landing pages without touching code and provides an enhanced guided experience with more interactive elements to further increase efficiency and spark creativity. With the new landing page editor, marketers can natively build responsive landing pages featuring image carousels with rotating images and add video backgrounds to create more engaging content without needing technical expertise or outside agency support. 

· Streamline and optimize the sales process: New Eloqua Sales Tools for Microsoft Outlook enable sales teams to access rich buyer insights, relevant content and track emails sent to prospects without having to leave their email platform of choice. The new integration with Microsoft Outlook also provides a seamless and consistent experience for sales teams that work across a range of platforms and devices by enabling users to easily access Eloqua Engage and Eloqua Profiler. 

· Enhance security, tracking and auditing: A new comprehensive logging and auditing procedure for all major accounts and objects, further enhances the security and tracking capabilities within Eloqua. The new auditing capabilities ensure any sensitive data within Eloqua is protected against unauthorized usage or retrieval and enable users to obtain insights about login history, detailed audit insights and enhanced audit reporting that includes the ability to export audit logs for up to 25 months in CSV and XLS format. 

Oracle Marketing Cloud is part of Oracle Customer Experience (CX) Cloud Suite, an integrated suite of applications that empower organizations to take a smarter approach to customer experience management and business transformation initiatives. By providing a trusted business platform that connects data, experiences and outcomes, Oracle CX Cloud Suite helps customers reduce IT complexity, deliver innovative customer experiences, and achieve predictable and tangible business results. 

For additional information about Oracle Marketing Cloud, follow @OracleMktgCloud on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook or visit the Modern Marketing Blog.

Contact Info

Simon Jones
Oracle
415.202.4574
s.jones@oracle.com