Oracle Launches Enterprise Product Lifecycle Management Growth Strategy in Malaysia

Oracle Demonstrates Leadership, Industry Validation, Customer and Partner Momentum

PETALING JAYA, April 23, 2008 – Oracle announced its growth strategy for Enterprise Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) to address increasing demand from midsize and large organisations in Malaysia. To stay competitive and enhance business performance, organisations in Malaysia are looking for solutions that will enable them to reduce complexities, gain visibility and make better decisions across the complete product lifecycle. The growing interest in and demand for Oracle’s Agile PLM validates the importance of best-in-class PLM capabilities and the success companies are having by relying on Oracle’s Agile PLM to achieve the above objectives.

Oracle sees significant opportunity for Enterprise PLM solutions in Asia Pacific, including Malaysia. There is also growing interest in multiple industries, including consumer goods, life sciences, high-tech and industrial manufacturing.

According to IDC[i], PLM revenues in Asia Pacific are expected to increase from US$1.7billion in 2006 to US$2.4billion in 2011. This is a five-year compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.3%.

Since its acquisition of Agile Software Corporation, Oracle’s Agile PLM has gained momentum globally. Leading industry research firms are recognizing Oracle’s Agile PLM for its market positioning, functionality and customer success. Oracle has been positioned in the Leader Quadrant for “Magic Quadrant for Manufacturing Product Life Cycle Management, 4Q07” Report by industry research firm Gartner[ii], and by AMR Research[iii] as a leader among Enterprise Product Lifecycle Management vendors. [See other Press Release “Oracle Demonstrates Leadership in Enterprise Product Lifecycle Management”]

“As evidenced by our industry validation and customer results, Oracle has the product breadth, industry expertise, and openness to CAD and ERP systems and vision to be the preferred PLM vendor for companies in Malaysia who rely on Oracle, as well as SAP and other legacy ERP vendors,” said Jasbir Singh, General Manager, Oracle Application Sales, ASEAN. “With Oracle’s Agile PLM, companies will continue to achieve immediate value across the entire product introduction network – from engineering to manufacturing and delivery.”

Customers & Partners Value Strength of Oracle's Agile Offering
Faced with increased competitive and cost pressures, companies across various markets and industries are turning to Oracle’s Agile PLM. Leading organizations in Asia Pacific that have invested in Oracle’s Agile PLM include: Acer, Advantech, Arima Comm, Benchmark Electronics, CAMEO, Celestica, Conexant, Foxlink (Cheng Uei), Flextronics, Geneva Watch Group, Heinz, IAC, Inventec Besta, Jabil Circuits, RichTek, Sanmina-SCI, Sercomm, Shenzhen Sang Fei, U-Media Communications and Universal Scientific Industries (USI).

Oracle has also established key partners across the region that are experienced in PLM best practices and implementations to address regional market demand. Oracle’s partners include: Ares, AdvancedTEK, Deloitte, Geometric, HCL, HP, IBM, IVAN Information, Infosys, Jigsaw, Kalypso, Oakton, Satyam, Sierra Atlantic, Systime, and Tata Consulting.

Awareness and adoption of PLM in Asia Pacific continues to grow as PLM evolves from an engineering-centric tool used to manage complex product design information, to an enterprise-wide business application for managing product information, streamlining business processes and enabling better decisions across the complete product lifecycle. With Oracle’s Agile PLM, companies are extending the value of PLM beyond the engineering department, to implementing best-practice processes across design, development, manufacturing and product delivery. Organizations are leveraging all business and technical information related to products, creating a seamless flow of product information throughout the enterprise and across the product network. Oracle's Agile PLM enables companies to drive profits, accelerate innovation, improve quality, enable globalization and help ensure regulatory compliance throughout the product lifecycle.

Oracle’s PLM Leadership Strategy in Asia Pacific
To help customers accelerate product innovation and maximize profitability, Oracle is working with its partners to drive the following strategy for delivering Enterprise PLM across Asia Pacific:
· Best-in-Class Applications - Oracle plans to continue to deliver best-in-class Enterprise PLM applications which can be deployed quickly across all product development and broader enterprise organizations and stakeholders involved in the product lifecycle;
· Industry Focus - Oracle intends to continue to add industry-specific, next-generation functionality to Oracle's Agile PLM solutions, building upon Agile's existing expertise in industries such as consumer goods, high-tech, industrial manufacturing and life sciences;
· Commitment to Openness - Oracle plans to remain committed to maintaining and extending the openness of Agile's leading best-in-class solution that is both CAD and ERP agnostic;
· Strategic Integrations - Based on a service-oriented architecture, Oracle's Agile PLM is being designed to be extended through open, standard-based Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA) to different enterprise components, such as manufacturing and shop floor capabilities, supply chain planning functionality, CRM, financial applications, enterprise performance management and business analytics. These pre-built, open standards-based integrations between Oracle's Agile PLM and other Oracle Applications incorporate best practices that can be leveraged and extended by partners and customers and can be integrated into legacy systems or other applications, such as SAP.

“Integrating Agile's leading PLM capabilities with Oracle Applications allows us to deliver an enterprise PLM solution that enables companies to make informed product decisions, speed product introduction and improve the quality of their products,” said Jasbir. “Our commitment to open, standards-based integrations will allow companies who rely on other enterprise applications including SAP to take advantage of our best-in-class PLM capabilities.”

*Gartner Magic Quadrant Disclaimer
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted January 4th 2008 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

[i] IDC, “Worldwide Product Life-Cycle Management Applications 2007-2011 Forecast: A First Look at a Reassuring 2006”, April 2007 (IDC #206253)
[ii] Gartner, “Magic Quadrant for Manufacturing Product Life Cycle Management, 4Q07,” by Marc Halpern, Dan Miklovic, January 4, 2008. To view the complete Gartner Magic Quadrant report, compliments of Oracle, visit http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/oracle/153351.html.
[iii] AMR Research, “PLM Market Landscape: Evolving To Enable Value Chain Excellence,” Jeffrey Hojlo, Michael Burkett and Koppel Verma, December 13, 2007. The complete report may be viewed at http://www.oracle.com/corporate/analyst/reports/ent_apps/plm/amr-20938.pdf.