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Posts from the ‘Oracle’ Category

Apr 28

LinkedIn Best Companies To Work For In 2021 Dominated By Tech

  • Four of LinkedIn’s top ten companies to grow your career in 2021 are tech leaders.
  • Amazon is the highest rated company, followed by Alphabet (2nd), IBM (6th), and Apple (8th).
  • 15 of the 50 top companies in the U.S. are in the tech industry, including Oracle, Salesforce, and SAP.

These and many other insights are from the LinkedIn Top Companies 2021: The 50 best workplaces to grow your career in the U.S. published today. All 50 companies are currently hiring and have over 300,000 jobs available right now. LinkedIn’s analysis of the best companies to grow your career spans 20 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Qatar, the UAE, and the U.K. 

LinkedIn is relying on a new methodology for the 2021 Top Companies Report. They’re basing the methodology has seven key pillars, each revealing an important element of career progression: the ability to advance, skills growth, company stability, external opportunity, company affinity, gender diversity, and educational background. LinkedIn provides an in-depth description of how they built their methodology here.

The 10 Best Companies To Grow Your Career In 2021

  1. Amazon – According to LinkedIn, Amazon has built an innovative remote-onboarding system, and it has more than 30,000 openings now. The fastest-growing skills in demand at Amazon include User Experience Design (UED), Digital Illustration, and Interaction Design. LinkedIn’s analysis shows the most in-demand jobs are Health And Safety Specialist, Station Operations Manager, Learning Manager.
  1. Alphabet, Inc – Planning to add at least 10,000 jobs in the U.S. alone and investing $7B in data centers and offices across 19 states, Alphabet grew revenue 47% last year, reaching $13B.  According to LinkedIn, the most in-demand jobs are Digital Specialist, Field Sales Specialist, and Business Systems Analyst.
  1. JPMorgan Chase & Co. – JPMorgan now offers 300 accredited skills and education programs to its workers, and the bank has been boosting wages for thousands of customer-facing roles to $16-$20 an hour. The most in-demand jobs include Market Specialist, Software Engineering Specialist, and Mortgage Underwriter.
  1. AT&T – 2020 was a tough year for AT&T, increasing the urgency the company has to grow its wireless and WarnerMedia businesses. Due to the pandemic, the company had to close hundreds of stores. Fortunately, AT&T was able to help the employees affected by the closures to find new jobs. The most in-demand jobs are Service Analyst, Trading Analyst, and Investment Specialist.
  1. Bank of America – Bank of America rose to the challenges of 2020, quickly redeploying almost 30,000 employees to assist in its role facilitating the government-backed Paycheck Protection Program. The most in-demand jobs are Trading Analyst, Investment Specialist, and Financial Management Analyst.
  1. IBM – More than one-third of IBM’s revenue now comes from work related to cloud computing. The company’s Red Hat unit is a leading contributor to that growth, prizing skills such as Linux, Java, Python, and agile methodologies. IBM also is a leader in hiring autistic people through its Neurodiversity program. Most in-demand jobs include Back End Developer, Enterprise Account Executive, and Technical Writer.
  1. Deloitte –  Deloitte’s key activities span audit, assurance, tax, risk, and financial advisory work, as well as management consulting. It’s aiming to hire 19,000 people in the year ending May 29. Top recruiting priorities currently include cybersecurity, cloud computing, and analytics specialists.
  1. Apple – LinkedIn finds that Apple is committed to building an inclusive culture. Over half of its new hires in the U.S. represent historically underrepresented groups in tech — and the company claims to have achieved pay equity in every country where it operates—looking for an in? Apple has nearly 3,000 open jobs in the U.S. right now, ranging from its “genius” role at its retail stores to executive assistants and software engineers. 
  1. Walmart –  In February, the retail giant promised further raises to over 400,000 of its people and months later announced it would increase the share of its hourly store employees who work full-time to over 66% (up from 53% five years ago). Meanwhile, Walmart continues to think beyond the store as it ventures deeper into the e-commerce realm. Most in-demand jobs include Operational Specialist, Fulfillment Associate, and Replenishment Manager.
  1. EY – The accounting firm spent $450 million on employee training in 2020. And it is planning to hire over 15,000 people in the next year. With that much talent coming in, EY is focused on bringing in workers with diverse backgrounds, focusing on gender identity, race, and ethnicity, disability, LGBT+, and veterans. The most in-demand jobs include Strategy Director, Business Transformation Consultant, and Information Technology Consulting Manager.

Aug 15

Roundup of Big Data Forecasts and Market Estimates, 2012

From the best-known companies in enterprise software to start-ups, everyone is jumping on the big data bandwagon.

The potential of big data to bring insights and intelligence into enterprises is a strong motivator, where managers are constantly looking for the competitive edge to win in their chosen  markets.  With so much potential to provide enterprises with enhanced analytics, insights and intelligence, it is understandable why this area has such high expectations – and hype – associated with it.

Given the potential big data has to reorder an enterprise and make it more competitive and profitable, it’s understandable why there are so many forecasts and market analyses being done today.  The following is a roundup of the latest big data forecasts and market estimates recently published:

  • As of last month, Gartner had received 12,000 searches over the last twelve months for the term “big data” with the pace increasing.
  • In Hype Cycle for Big Data, 2012, Gartner states that Column-Store DBMS, Cloud Computing, In-Memory Database Management Systems will be the three most transformational technologies in the next five years.  Gartner goes on to predict that Complex Event Processing, Content Analytics, Context-Enriched Services, Hybrid Cloud Computing, Information Capabilities Framework and Telematics round out the technologies the research firm considers transformational.  The Hype Cycle for Big Data is shown below:

  • Predictive modeling is gaining momentum with property and casualty (P&C) companies who are using them to support claims analysis, CRM, risk management, pricing and actuarial workflows, quoting, and underwriting. Web-based quoting systems and pricing optimization strategies are benefiting from investments in predictive modeling as well.   The Priority Matrix for Big Data, 2012 is shown below:

  • Social content is the fastest growing category of new content in the enterprise and will eventually attain 20% market penetration.   Gartner defines social content as unstructured data created, edited and published on corporate blogs, communication and collaboration platforms, in addition to external platforms including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and a myriad of others.
  • Gartner reports that 45% as sales management teams identify sales analytics as a priority to help them understand sales performance, market conditions and opportunities.
  • Over 80% of Web Analytics solutions are delivered via Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).  Gartner goes on to estimate that over 90% of the total available market for Web Analytics are already using some form of tools and that Google reported 10 million registrations for Google Analytics alone.  Google also reports 200,000 active users of their free Analytics application.  Gartner also states that the majority of the customers for these systems use two or more Web analytics applications, and less than 50% use the advanced functions including data warehousing, advanced reporting and higher-end customer segmentation features.
  • In the report Market Trends: Big Data Opportunities in Vertical Industries, the following heat map by industry shows that from a volume of data perspective, Banking and Securities, Communications, Media and Services, Government, and Manufacturing and Natural Resources have the greatest potential opportunity for Big Data.

  • Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity is available for download from the McKinsey Global Institute for free.  This is 156 page document authored by McKinsey researchers is excellent.  While it was published last year (June, 2011), if you’re following big data, download a copy as much of the research is still relevant.  McKinsey includes extensive analysis of how big data can deliver value in a manufacturing value chains for example, which is shown below:

Aug 4

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Oracle Files Suit Against Oasis Research LLC Over Cloud Computing Patents

Oracle chose to go on the offensive today against Oasis Research LLC, who accused the company of violating six different patents in the development, marketing and service of Oracle On Demand, Oracle CRM On Demand and other applications.

Oracle chose to file their suit against Oasis Research LLC in Delaware federal court, seeking both a declaratory judgment of noninfringment and invalidity of six U.S. patents.  On May 26th, 2011 counsel representing Oasis Research sent a letter to Oracle alleging  the enterprise software company of “utilizing and benefiting from technologies and features covered in Oasis’ patents”.  According to the complaint filed in Delaware federal court, Oasis alleges that Oracle is offering for sale, selling, maintaining and supporting various online fee-based SaaS products including but not limited to Oracle On Demand and Oracle CRM On Demand based on Oasis patented intellectual property.  The letter concluded with Oasis demanding licensing agreements and fees from Oracle.

Oasis Research did not invent the technologies mentioned in this suit, they were acquired from Intellectual Ventures Computing Platform Assets LLC.  Oracle alleges in the complaint that the primary business model of Oasis is to obtain licensing revenues based on the inventory of patents they own, arguing that lack of investment in these technologies limits their patentability.

The six patents named in the complaint include the following:

  • U.S. Patent No. 5,771,354 pertains to an Internet online backup system that provides remote storage for customers using IDs and passwords that are interactively established when signing up for backup services.  This patent was originally issued on June 23, 1998.
  • U.S. Patent No. 5,901,228 refers to commercial online backup services that provide transparent extended storage to remote customers over telecommunications links.  This patent was issued May 4, 1999.
  • U.S. Patent 6,014,651 refers to commercial online software distribution systems and methods using encryption for security.  This patent was issued January 11, 2000.
  • U.S. Patent 6,327,579 defines online services including help desk, anti-virus and/or application service features   This patent was issued December 4, 2001.
  • U.S. Patent 6,411,943 defines an Internet online backup system that provides remote storage for customers using IDs and passwords which were interactively establish when signing up for backup services.  This patent was issued June 25, 2002.
  • U.S. Patent 7,080,051 defines Internet download systems and methods providing software to Internet computer users for local execution.  This patent was issued July 18, 2006.

Oracle alleges in the compliant none of these patents have been infringed, seeks relief from the licensing attempts by Oasis, and also seeks a declaration that one or more of the patents-in-suit fail to meet the conditions of patentability.  Oracle is also seeking coverage of all costs, expenses, disbursements and reasonable attorney fees.

Conclusion

Given the amount of hours attorneys at Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, Infor and many other enterprise software companies are going to log in the next several years over patent infringement, it makes sense to create an application to streamline contract, patent and legal processes.  It’s a perfect application for a database company to build, and lends itself well to analytics and reporting all delivered via the SaaS platform. Litigation burns thousands of hours, millions of dollars, is a major distraction to any business and taken together form a set of requirements ideal for these companies to tackle with what they do best: develop applications to solve complex business problems.

Sources: (free opt in required) http://www.law360.com/ip/articles/262334/oracle-files-pre-emptive-suit-over-cloud-computing-ip

 

Jun 12

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Gartner Search Analytics Shows Spike in Platform as a Service (PaaS) Inquiries in 2011

Trends of search terms from user accounts and topics of their inquiries form the catalyst of research agendas in many IT advisory firms.  At Gartner these two factors and others like them are commonly regarded as leading indicators of future IT spending.

Gartner has been delivering short analyses of these subject areas to clients in the form of reports, with the latest being Search Analytics Trends: Platform as a Service published on June 9, 2011.  This report covers user search activity from April, 2009 to March, 2011. For purposes of the report, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) is defined as cloud application infrastructure services delivered as a service.  Gartner makes the point that PaaS includes no traditional software license and is expensed on a metered or utility basis.  Presented below is the time series of searches by month from the report.

A few key take-aways emerge from the report, and they are presented below:

  • Cloud Middleware Services including Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) are still unknown to many Gartner IT user clients.  As a result this area is seen with skepticism by many of their clients.  In studies of PaaS adoption from other analysts at Gartner and Forrester, it is evident that internal software development will make or break the credibility of PaaS initiatives for the long-term.
  • When Gartner IT users search for PaaS on the website and throughout online research, the four most common secondary terms are IaaS and SaaS (7.05%), Magic Quadrant (6.12%) and cloud (5.72%).  Clearly Gartner IT user clients are looking to define their own technology stack in this area and looking for a framework of reference of where PaaS fits into their own IT plans and architectures.  The competitive intensity across the analyst community will most likely go up as a result of the uncertainty many IT buyers have over PaaS.
  • The top three vendors that Gartner IT users search for are Microsoft (18%), Amazon (13%) and Tata (11%).  Additional vendors include IBM (11%), Salesforce.com (11%), SAP (7%), Google and Oracle (4%).

Bottom line: The key to PaaS adoption in larger enterprises, many of which are IT user clients of Gartner, is how successfully Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) clarify their value proposition and how their apps add value to the platform layer.

Nov 14

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Oracle’s 2010 Roadmap to Enterprise Cloud Computing

[tweetmeme source=@LouisColumbus only_single=false]

At the 7th Annual Cloud Expo held earlier this month at the Santa Clara Convention Center, Rex Wang of Oracle presented his company’s 2010 roadmap to Cloud Computing.  Rex is the VP of Product Marketing with responsibility for cloud and grid computing, in addition to enterprise architecture, modernization and embedded systems.

Key take-aways from this presentation include the following:

  • 28.6% of respondents have internal or private clouds today according to an IOUG Study cited in the presentation.
  • 54.% of respondents do not use public cloud providers.
  • 24.7% use Application Server Platform as a Service, the highest percentage across PaaS and IaaS adoption from the study completed.
  • Financial & accounting (19.6%), HR (18.6%) and collaboration-based apps including e-mail (18.2%) are the three most common applications running on private cloud services

Oracle’s 2010 roadmap to Cloud Computing provides insights into how they are shaping their private cloud value proposition and selling strategy around Exadata, Exalogic, and WebLogic.  Oracle clearly sees private clouds dominating.

Bottom line: The future of cloud architectures will be much more hybrid in structure and scope, as every enterprise has legacy data that cannot be easily moved into private clouds.  Add in the complexity of aggregating and normalizing unstructured content, and the direction of cloud architectures will be more hybrid, less private, over time.

Sep 27

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Oracle CEO Larry Ellison defines Cloud Computing at OpenWorld

For all the hype and millions spent entertaining customers, analysts and the press at OpenWorld, Oracle isn’t really breaking new ground here. They are taking their enterprise model and shifting it not to a cloud strategy, but an enterprise stack. The following video is excellently done by IDG and worth watching.

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Sep 27

Red Cloud Rising – How Oracle Is Creating the Next Enterprise Stack

As Oracle continues to build out their enterprise stack with acquisitions over the next year, sales of the Exalogic Elastic Cloud will be a leading indicator of how successful their new systems strategy is and where. Most likely stealth environments including aerospace and defense, banking and financial services will immediately see a need. Oracle has taken the concept of cloud computing and used it as a unifying concept to make their acquisitions make sense. It remains to be seen if Oracle customers will be willing to make such significant changes during a time when any purchasing or spending risks are being avoided.

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Sep 19

Oracle’s Cloud Computing Vision Meets Reality at OpenWorld – Part I

Bottom line: Look for Oracle to make a play for the evolution of private clouds to hybrid clouds through middleware and still own the entire technology stack, from Java all the way to applications.

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Feb 9

Oracle Sees the Light of Cloud Computing and Launches World Tour

Bottom line: During previous quarterly earnings calls Oracle has often said they see cloud computing as an aberration and a business that could not scale to profitability. Not wanting to leave any money on the table with enterprise accounts, Oracle gets cloud religion just in time to upsell servers, services and infrastructure. Larry’s favorite cloud color is currency green.

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