Small and Midsize Businesses Achieve Enterprise-Level Availability and Performance with Oracle(R) Database 10g Standard Edition One on Linux

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., Dec. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) worldwide are taking advantage of the power and value of an enterprise-class database with Oracle(R) Database 10g Standard Edition One (Oracle Standard Edition One), Oracle's (Nasdaq: ORCL) full- featured database priced and packaged for deployment on two processor server systems. Oracle Standard Edition One features fast installation, automated management and Oracle HTML DB, for rapid Web application development, on top of the proven performance, reliability and security of the industry-leading Oracle Database.

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Blue Gecko, Minnesota Public Radio, Primary Electric Supply and World'Vest Base are among the organizations benefiting from Oracle Standard Edition One on the Linux platform. With the growing popularity of Oracle Database products on Linux, including Oracle Standard Edition One, Oracle continues its deep commitment to the development and support of Linux. Blue Gecko Hosts Oracle Standard Edition One for Customers

Based in Seattle, Wash., Blue Gecko, LLC, (http://www.bluegecko.net ) is an Information Technology (IT) hosted and managed services provider for SMBs. Blue Gecko's customer base spans non-profit agencies to grocery stores -- organizations with two or less IT personnel on average. The company offers comprehensive administration and monitoring for servers and infrastructure services including operating systems, databases, applications, Web servers, email, networks, and more, for its hosted and managed services customers.

Numerous Blue Gecko customers use Oracle Standard Edition One on Linux to meet their mission-critical requirements. The high-performance, availability and reliability delivered by Oracle Standard Edition One has enabled Blue Gecko to broaden its customer base.

"Oracle Standard Edition One allows Blue Gecko to offer our customers access to Oracle Database features and functionality that they would not have had before," said Chuck Edwards, president, Blue Gecko, LLC. "Customers might have chosen a different solution or delayed their plans to implement an Oracle-based application. Oracle Standard Edition One's feature set is richer than competitive products and provides the scalability customers want at a fraction of the cost. As a service provider, we are now able to reach a whole range of customers we were not able to even start a conversation with before." Minnesota Public Radio Tunes into Oracle Standard Edition One

Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) (http://www.mpr.org ) is one of the nation's premier public radio organizations. With headquarters in the heart of downtown St. Paul, Minn., MPR operates a regional network of 37 stations, covering Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin, the Dakotas, Michigan, Iowa and Idaho. MPR is also the country's second largest producer of nationally- distributed public radio programs.

The radio station uses Oracle Standard Edition One as the database for its Digital Media Archive (DMA) system. The DMA system is designed to move MPR's audio archive from failing analog and digital media to a centrally-monitored and managed file-based storage system. It preserves audio in a format that allows for easy re-use in production and broadcast systems, as well as increasing safety of archival material through added redundancy. The system also provides a way to search the entire archive via a single user interface, giving access to all staff so they can use the material without harming the original masters.

Since it was migrated to Oracle Standard Edition One, the system's typical query time has been reduced from two minutes to less than five seconds and now supports a higher number of concurrent users. Besides improving system performance, which for example enables the radio station's news reporters to produce news segments more efficiently, Oracle Standard Edition One running on Linux also offers a lower total cost of ownership.

"We knew all along that Oracle Database would solve our performance problems," said Rajesh Kapur, Lead DBA, Minnesota Public Radio. "However, we were under the impression that Oracle Database would be very expensive to buy. We were elated to discover that Oracle Standard Edition One is priced for less than $5,000 per CPU. The support costs are accordingly low. On the whole, we are very pleased with our decision to migrate to Oracle Standard Edition One." Oracle Standard Edition One Powers Primary Electric's Applications, IT Infrastructure

Primary Electric Supply, Inc. (Primary Electric) (http://www.primaryelectricsupply.com ) is an independently owned wholesale electrical distributor located in Baltimore, Md. Serving the Mid-Atlantic region, Primary Electric is a vital link in the supply chain between many of the industry's top manufacturer's and the area's professional contractors. Primary Electric's industry leading expertise, rapid access to information, knowledge and flexibility provide its customers with the lowest total delivered cost.

Facing a shrinking IT budget, Primary Electric sought a cost effective way to develop and deploy custom applications ranging from Human Resource Management to full-scale Warehouse Inventory management systems. Primary Electric chose an Oracle Standard Edition One on Linux solution to replace aging Microsoft Access database applications and spreadsheets that could not scale or meet their expanding business needs.

The company quickly developed a custom user-friendly Warehouse Inventory management system using Oracle HTML DB, an Oracle Database 10g feature that enables customers to easily build, deploy and manage secure Web applications using only a Web browser. The system manages the life cycle of inventory resource materials from receipt, work order entry, processing, labeling, and finally shipment. Primary Electric was also able to provide its supply chain partners with secure, real-time, read-only Web access to view basic metrics and to monitor Primary Electric's current and future inventory requirements. In addition, Primary Electric developed Oracle HTML DB-based applications for Human Resources, Employee Vacation Management, Corporate CRM systems, and Customer Blanket Information tracking systems.

"We had searched for a scalable, profit enhancing platform for years," said Richard Stepanian Jr., president, Primary Electric Supply, Inc. "When Oracle Standard Edition One was introduced, we were able to partner with an industry leader at a cost effective price. Oracle HTML DB has provided us with a powerful yet easy to use application development solution to design and deploy scalable applications quickly. Best of all, Oracle HTML DB is included with Oracle Standard Edition One at no charge. The ability to transact on the industry leading Oracle Database through Oracle HTML DB has provided immediate quantitative results." World'Vest Base Invests in Future with Oracle Standard Edition One

Headquartered in Chicago, Ill., World'Vest Base (WVB) (http://www.wvb.com ) has regional financial data collection offices in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Hanoi, Vietnam; Cairo, Egypt; Bangkok, Thailand and Guadalajara, Mexico. WVB's business is the comprehensive collection of company financial fundamentals worldwide and provision of data that is required to make sound financial decisions.

The WVB global database is the financial industry's premier source of detailed and transparent financial statement data on public companies. The database universe spans over 30,000 companies over 80 countries from Asia, Africa, Australasia, Europe, Latin America and North America.

WVB uses Oracle to archive financial data on public companies. Oracle Standard Edition One has significantly improved WVB's data collection times by 15 percent and client production deliverables were improved by 25 percent.

"In a global 24 x 7 business, Oracle Standard Edition One has helped us rein in and re-deploy our resources," said Eduardo Coronado, director of Technology at WVB. "Building the road to tomorrow's success with Linux OS and Oracle gives us a unique advantage. Oracle is our anchor in the constantly changing IT world and consistently makes improvements which directly impact our bottom-line." Linux Available on Oracle Technology Network

To date, more than one million downloads of Oracle's products for Linux have been registered. Developers interested in downloading source codes and Oracle products on Linux, can access the Oracle Technology Network at http://otn.oracle.com/linux . About Oracle Database 10g Standard Edition One

Oracle Database 10g Standard Edition One (Oracle Standard Edition One) allows customers to take advantage of the proven performance, reliability and security for which Oracle is renowned on single server systems up to a maximum of two processors on Linux, UNIX, Windows and Mac OS X. Fully compatible with the complete Oracle Database family, Oracle Standard Edition One is easy to install, supports all data types and comes complete with automated management and Web application development tools. About Oracle

Oracle is the world's largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com . Trademarks

Oracle, JD Edwards, and PeopleSoft are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.