In order to address the market needs of 1998-99, Oracle plans to con-tinue with its
current structure of business units. These include commercial sales of software, customer
support, consulting, and education and training. These business units also helped
 COUNTRY PERFORMANCE HIGHLIGHTS
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Oracle to achieve a turnover of Rs 94.5 crore in 1997-98, a growth of 35 percent
over the previous year.
The strategic focus on network computing revolves around the Oracle India Development
Center at Bangalore. This ISO 9001 development center houses around 160 software
engineers. During the second half of 1997, the center was assigned the task of developing
the prototype of the NC desktop operating system and NC server.
In order to build awareness of the benefits of network computing technology, Oracle is
planning to develop a number of proof-of-concept centers around the country with its
partners. The first two, National Center for Network Computing and Network Computing
Laboratory, will be based in Delhi. The presence of these centers will facilitate the
development of a national think-tank, involving the industry and the government.
The mainstay of Oracle’s revenue continues to be its application software sales. Oracle
works with a number of market development partners. These include platform providers,
system integrators, application providers, application implementation partners,
industry-specific alliances and others. While most of these partners have existed
previously, Oracle plans to focus on vertical industries through its industry alliance
partners. These include TCS for financial services. Infosys for banking, Satyam for
telecom, and Price Waterhouse for power and insurance.
Oracle is planning to continue its vertical industry focus with emphasis on
transportation, consumer goods, government, and healthcare. Recent installations of Oracle
supply-chain applications include Kirloskar Oil Engines, Sony India, Piramal Group, Indian
Aluminium Co., DCM Shriram, and others.
Oracle is also continuing its market expansion activities through education and
training. It currently has three education alliances with SQL Star, Price Waterhouse, and
Aptech. A recent development has been its alliance with the Andhra Pradesh Government.
While the long-term ITscape appears exciting for Oracle, with network computing
technology beginning to be accepted by global vendors, the short-term domestic market
appears to be dampening. In the RDBMS segment, Microsoft SQL Server and datawarehouse
major SAS Institute have begun to make inroads into its traditional stronghold accounts,
and Oracle supply-chain applications have only achieved a weak market share against ERP
majors. In the immediate future, Oracle can only look forward to competition making
inroads into its market share, till the time network computing takes off in the country.
