Alcohol Essays - Drinking Culture, Alcohol Abuse, Alcoholism

Sun Tzu Strategic Management Free Essays

Sun Assignment 2. Vital Management . School of Strategy. We will compose a custom exposition test on Sun Tzu Strategic Management or then again any comparable theme just for you Request Now As indicated by Synder and Neil H. (1982) in their diary called ‘Strategic Management Journal’ , The school of methodology meaning of vital arranging that are offered by Henry Mintzberg in 1981 presumes that key arranging is a procedure including all parts of arranging that coordinated dynamic, organized system with articulate outcomes, and explicit strategic destinations that ought to be viewed overall procedure. In the school of system, there are 10 way of thinking, it is partitioned into two sections which are prescriptive and clear. The subtleties of the methodology are demonstrated as follows. Prescriptive schools : comprise of 3 schools which are Design, Planning and Positioning. Graphic schools : comprise of 7 schools which are Entrepreneurial, Cognitive, Learning, Power, Cultural, Environmental and Configuration. Additionally, Written in article called â€Å" An Overview of Strategy Development Models and the Ward-RIvani Model’ by Dr. David Ward (2005). In year 1977 another person tagged along which a lot of procedure close by Mitzberg that called Whittington. He asserted that there are four standards that will decide a technique achievement which are Deterministic or Emergent, Single Goal or Pluralistic, Strategy Style, and Influences. The Link between Prescriptive schools and Descriptive schools. From what I comprehend from both of this schools, prescriptive schools are the initial step of technique that should have been done If we might want to accomplish something. For instance, If you need to start your own business, the initial step would be the prescriptive school where you have to structure what sort of business you might want to do, plan how to do your business (marketable strategy) nd likewise how you position your business(where do you need your business to be). In the other hand , Descriptive schools of methodologies are the systems and aptitudes that are expected to present you prescriptive schools . Where all parts of this technique can impact your business. For instance, any fruitful business need to have a pioneer who can l ead the association forward where what has been planned, plan , and situated and to be a pioneer, methodology as enterprise is basic. The Differences between Prescriptive schools and Descriptive schools. In Prescriptive schools, structure and arranging are the point of an organization â€Å" to fit hierarchical capacity with ecological capacity and to best designate assets to accomplish any picked objectives inside a particular timeframe† and to make the point a triumph, an appropriate situating methodology should have been finished. All of proposals models frequently utilizing methodologies, for example, ecological examination, for example, SWOT investigation (structure), guaging (arranging), Market portion five powers (situating). In this way, we would comprehend here that prescriptive schools are utilized to see increasingly about the market. For example, in vital administration, prescriptive schools are frequently used to figure out who is your objective market, understanding your rivals, characterizing your chances, and furthermore what sort of system that our organization might want to execute appropriately to increase upper hand particularly on the off chance that you are working together comprehensively or developing your business globally. In the other hand, Descriptive Schools are a greater amount of the considerable number of things that should have been all together inside an organization or association to execute the methodology that has been pick. For instance, even with a legitimate arranging yet without an appropriate group to execute it, it will be difficult for any business to continue even in the beginning period while making business. Its comprise of pioneer required, organizing we have, culture reflects , monetary cycle, natural circumtances, morals , and furthermore psychological brain research. Which implies that, in clear schools , it is all the segments that an organization or firm need to have so as to execute any technique splendidly. How to Profeciently Execute any procedure when we as of now comprehend about the schools of methodology? On the planet business these days, understanding the hypothetical region of a procedure, for example, schools of technique would not be sufficient to execute an ideal methodology. As had been expressed by Gamble and Arthur (2009) in their book called ‘ Essentials of Strategic Management’ , They have expressed that there are three components that should have been have so as to execute any procedure. The components are appeared beneath : Human Capital †Intangible resources, for example, abilities, information, and qualities that are required by the system. . Data Capital †Intangible resources, for example, the frameworks, databases, and systems that help the technique. 3. Hierarchical Capital †Strategy steady impalpable resources, for example, authority, arrangement of objectives, and collaboration. Whittington’s Classification of Strategic Perspective. As indicated by Whittington(2002), in his book called ‘ What is Strategy and Does it Matterâ €™ , expanding benefits is the most significant standard of business and objective arranging required on the off chance that we need to achieve it. Then, the vital point in business would procure an arrival on capital, and if in a specific case the arrival over the long haul isn't sufficient, the lack ought to be rectified or the action ought to be deserted. To summarize the possibility of whittington : Classical Approach of methodology. †an old style way to deal with any technique necessitates that the director must be prepared and fit for receiving benefit amplifying procedures through long haul arranging. Other than that there are three more case of approach that are appeared underneath : Evolutionaty Approach of methodology. oes not depend on top administration aptitude to plan and act normally. Rather, it will all rely upon the business sectors which will decide the benefit expansion. Additionally, in transformative point of view, the best chosen procedure will decide the presentation of the organization. Processual Approach to technique. Associations and markets are fashioned with disarray and chaos. Along these lines , the best Processual technique isn't take a stab at the perfect, rather, it expected to work with the truth offers where miniaturized scale political view has suggested that organizations are not joined towards a solitary objective, for example, benefit. Other than that, it will be up on the quantity of people with various intrigue and carry them to the association. The principle technique for this methodology is to rearrange all the mind boggling forms. Foundational Approach on Strategy. †The scholar for this methodology accept that the association is fit for arranging and acting viably. All the social factors, for example, family, state, and religion impacts the methods and parts of the bargains approach and will characterize what is the appropriate conduct for every one of their individuals. In this methodology, the association are made up by a people as well as of social gatherings with interests. For example, class and callings, countries and states, families and sex can be decide as the fundamental factors. Thus, the system will relies upon the social condition of the firm. In view of four methodology on technique by Whittington, these four speculations of activity in business will offer us an understanding into the inspiration driving any organizations vision and what are the procedures that the organizations might want to actualize so as to increase upper hand in their market. Reference List : Ward, . (2005). An Overview of Strategy Development Models and the Ward-Rivani Model . . (1), pg12-16. Bet, Arthur,. (2009). Predominant Strategy Execution †Another way of upper hand. In: Griffin, L. Fundamental of Strategic Management. America, New York: McGraw-Hill. pg116-136. Synder, Neil H.. (1982). Research Notes and Communications.. Key Management Journa. (3), p265-267. Whittington, Richard (2002). What is Strategy-and Does it Matter?. UK: Thomson Learning. pg29-57. Step by step instructions to refer to Sun Tzu Strategic Management, Essay models

Research Challenge Case Study Investigation Example

Research Challenge Case Study Investigation Example Research Challenge Case Study Investigation â€" Case Study Example > A third pipe systemThird pipe system entails development linked to recycled water. It is also a form of a commercially-generated recycled water system in which non-portable water by the providers of services to a household as well as industrial use passes through. It is also a system providing a non-portable and reticulated supply of water and utilizes various sets of pipes. Examples of non-portable residential utilization of water include toilet flushing and garden watering. Several households are linked to the third pipe system. The system is also utilized to ensure a supply of untreated ground water for the use outdoor as well as for irrigation by the public. Finally, the third pipe system is used for the delivery of alternate water (Lane, Haas, Lant, 2012, p. 17). Quality and sources of waterMelbourne is one of the regions with quality drinking water in the globe. However, the quality differs depending on the area. The region’s water supplies recycle water to companies reta iling water, who then ensure the distribution to the customers. The recycled water is safe for outdoor purpose as it meets the Department of Health and EPA Victoria requirements. Being a dry area, alternate water mainly through recycling is essential for outdoor uses. Most of the water are primarily from protected as well as remote catchments meaning that minimal treatment is required. About 70 percent of Melbourne's population have their water from open sources, and the water is disinfected. The management of the filtration plants for water is by Melbourne Water. The plants ensure the removal of harmful microorganisms as well as sediments from drinking water. Once the treatment is done, the next step is disinfection of the same. Melbourne Water is also active in ensuring that the supplied water is at its highest quality by providing a continuous improvement of the process of disinfection. The quality of the drinking water is essential to the satisfaction of the customers (Melbour ne Water Corporation 2011, p. 3). Case StudiesCase OneAurora is a large scale as well as a residential third pipe system in Victoria. It was the first third pipe system in Victoria and among the first in Australia. The water re-use scheme of Aurora is a part of Greenfield housing development in the Northern urban fringe of Melbourne, in the City of Whittlesea. The launching of the project was 2006, and it was meant to serve 8500 homes with recycled water for laundry, toilet flushing, public open space irrigation, as well as garden watering, once it is completed in 2025-2030. Its development was faced with uncertainty as well as severe consequences. Embarking on the scheme of water re-use called for the exploration of new grounds. Risk assessment in this unfamiliar terrain exposed surprising comprehensions about the less examined approaches to water and sewer provision for the water of Yalla valley. Continued difficulties of operation have constrained the actually recycled water vo lume. Inexpensive raw land, as well as the remoteness from the services of sewage, offered the chance to show the role of recycling of water in sustainable housing development. The water re-use scheme idea was developer-led. Two critical factors determined the viability of the Aurora third pipe system and these are the costs of cheap raw land as well as the implementation of a project on a large scale to ensure the distribution of expenditure over numerous households (Willis, Stewart, Williams, Hacker, Emmonds, Capati 2011, p. 201).

Families With Young Children - 924 Words

Families with young children across the world greatly differ in their composition. Some families may consist of only one parent, other children who have no parents at home may have extended family members raising them, while others may have a multi-generational home with both parents and grandparents living in the same house, to name a few. Regardless of the family composition, there is a common thread when it comes to bringing up young children, support. In decades past, many families lived near each other and naturally functioned as a support network for each other. However, in today’s society and economy, people have to move away from their family to find employment and affordable housing. One study conducted by a professor of pediatrics at Clemson University, Dr. Gary Melton, depicted the urgency of the matter, his findings of a poll taken in a vastly diverse area in South Carolina found about one-fifth of families with young children feel isolated (Melton, 2010). Lacking this sense of belonging to a community places stress on families, resulting in a rise of depression and anxiety (p 90), as well as, having no one to help in a time of need. Maternal depression among single mothers of young children is of particular concern (Rajaratnam, O’Campo, Caughy, Muntaner, 2008). Additionally, Melton indicates as families become part of a community and develop support networks, there is a decrease in child neglect and mal treatment (p 94). These support networks andShow MoreRelatedHealth Promotion For Young Children And Their Families4115 Words   |  17 Pages4 Life, which is a campaign to increase children’s activity levels and get them to eat healthier; it does this through various different ways such as online recipes, sending out leaflets and promotional letters. It is mainly aimed at young children and their families. Another example of a health promotion campaign is drink aware, the aim of the campaign is to raise awareness about excessive drinking and the effects it can have on the body, it also involves information about drink driving and has statisticsRead MoreThe Importance Of Working With Children And Young People And Their Families1722 Words   |  7 Pagessupports that working together to safeguard children enables different services to come together to prevent problems occurring. It is and effective way of supporting children and young people and their families ensuring that additional â€Å"needs are met. Trodd et al. (2011) commented that people working with children needs to explore the values and principles as they focus them on sustainable changes in their skills, attitudes and behaviours that can help children and future society.† This assignment willRead MoreSecure Attachment Relationship Between Young Children And Their Families898 Words   |  4 PagesNormal, healthy attachment will happen within a wide range of cultural, family, and individual variations in child-rearing customs. Studies of Strange Situation have distinguished secure from insecure attachment. Insecurity can take one of two forms: avoidant and anxious-ambivalent attachment. Attachment theory and research also point to specific strategies for supporting relationships between young children and their families. In child development, one theory is attachment theory is particularlyRead MoreThe Social Ecological Perspective Of Children, Young People And Their Families1330 Words   |  6 PagesThis study will examine the social ecological perspective of children, young people and their families and will demonstrate how this perspective can help in developing practice. It will do so by describing the Social Ecological Perspective by using the Ecological model introduced by Urie Bronfenbrenner (K218 learning guide 3, section 3.1) and demonstrating how the model is adapted and practiced within different frameworks like the Scottish Government framework ‘A Guide To Getting it Right for EveryRead MoreChildren And Young People Are Best Cared For By Their Own Families1501 Words   |  7 PagesThe Children Act 1989 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Local authorities, courts and parents, together with other agencies in the UK were allocated duties to ensure children and young people are safeguarded, and to promote their welfare. The idea is that children and young people are best cared for by their own families, but provisions are made for those parents and families that are unable to co-operate with statutory bodies. 7) Any delays in the system when a childà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬TMs welfare is at risk will have a detrimental impact onRead MoreStrength Based Approaches With Children, Young People And Families1834 Words   |  8 PagesStrength Based Approaches with children, young people and families. Elzia Kabengele Student ID: B1042280 Word Count: 1650 This paper reflects on knowledge gained through direct observation during the first part of the Strength Based Approaches Module. The ability to reflect is widely agreed to improve performance, manifested through analysing on strengths and the development of competence (Gibbs, 1988). Throughout this log, there will be a demonstration of how this approach has enabled me to workRead MoreAssess Strategies And Methods For Children, Young People And Their Families2577 Words   |  11 PagesM3,Assess strategies and methods used to minimise the harm to children, young people and their families where abuse is confirmed. Being respectful Showing respect to someone means you act in a way that shows you care about their feelings and well-being. Showing respect for others include things like not calling people mean names, treating people with courtesy, caring enough about yourself that you don t do things you know can hurt you. Respect must be earned, it cannot be ordered or demanded andRead MoreObserving, Documenting, and Assessing to Support Young Children and Their Families632 Words   |  2 Pages Standard #3: Observing, documenting and assessing to support young children and families. Q1.-In your opinion what are some important uses of assessment? Why do we need to assess? Assessment is often thought of as a punitive exercise. But the purpose of assessment is to ensure that students meet specific standards of progress and to rectify learning deficits before a child falls too far behind. Assessment can also identify a childs strengths as well as his or her weaknesses. As well as comparingRead MoreInvolving Young Children in the Decision-Making Process in Families and Schools1246 Words   |  5 PagesEven young children can be involved in decision making in the family and in schools Are children capable enough to make their own decisions without consultation of their family members? Do they qualify to participate in decisions made among adult family members? The answer to these questions lies in the fact that children do not have much know how about what is right or wrong for them; they always need some guidance and advice from their parents, elder brothers and sisters on matters related toRead MoreDiscuss the Skills and Attitudes to Working with Children, Young People and Families1924 Words   |  8 PagesDiscuss the skills and attitudes required to work with children, young people and families In this essay I will be researching policies, frameworks and reports that have highlighted skills and attitudes required to work with children, young people and families. I will also look at government documents such as EPPE, Common Core Framework and Every Child Matters. From my research I will discuss my findings and go on to include some personal opinions and reflection of my experience within settings

Critical Thinking Discussion - 764 Words

Introduction The relevance of critical thinking cannot be overstated. In addition to helping us properly evaluate arguments, critical thinking skills also do come in handy in the enhancement of our reasoning capabilities. In this text, I concern myself with critical thinking. In so doing, I will amongst other things discuss what critical thinking means to me and the role it is currently playing in my life. Critical Thinking: Discussion Question 1 To me, critical thinking is both the ability and courage to challenge explanations as well as ideas others would rather not challenge. Further, critical thinking to me is the ability to formulate and develop the best solutions to prevailing problems while at the same time evaluating proposed solutions for their relevance. To get things into perspective, it would be prudent to also take into consideration other peoples view of critical thinking. In the words of Moon (2012), the central activity of critical thinking is the assessment of what might be called evidence, in order to make a judgment. Currently, critical thinking enables me to bring out my arguments in a clear and reasonable way. For this reason, I am a better debater than most of my peers. My critical thinking skills have also been of great use to me in my academic life. This is more so the case when it comes to tackling my assignments. Question 2 Recently, we were watching a documentary film with a friend of mine regarding atheism. After we were doneShow MoreRelatedCritical Thinking and Discussion Student Observation566 Words   |  2 PagesThe Reading Assignment This week’s reading assignment fittingly focused on critical thinking beyond the assigned text, and course. It expressed the type of critical thinker you can become is completely dependent on your beliefs and willingness to abandon them to go outside your own realm of comfort. It also expresses the belief that although you should go outside our comfort zone, there is still a requirement to learn new words and established facts and ideas. This course began with assignmentsRead MoreConstructing Meaning Essay1124 Words   |  5 Pagescontroversial discussions and enhancing their critical thinking skills at the collegiate level. This article we will discuss some common issues that surface in college courses that encourage critical thinking. What strategies can educators use to promote enlightened and fair discussion of them† (Gainey Payne, 2003, p.52). The goal of the article was to share their findings from a research study in which through effective pedagogy is needed i n order to foster students having better critical thinking skillsRead MoreOutstanding Disscusion Board Princi Essay1017 Words   |  5 PagesGuide to an Outstanding Discussion Board Thread 1. Read your assignment carefully for content related requirements. Let’s look at the example below. Note that it does not ask for a vague opinion, but requires that your answer be based upon: * Five developmental theories found in your reading assignment. * Information found in reading and presentations related to human development. * Your Christian/Other worldview – this implies that you understand your worldview and clearly defineRead MoreEssay about Assessment of Critical Thinking976 Words   |  4 Pagesor the course modified. The aim of this paper is to define assessment and critical thinking skills, and then review a State University course and suggest different assessments that could be used to demonstrate learning. Theoretical Foundations of Nursing will be the course reviewed, as it is the only course I have previously taken, and therefore the only course which I have assess to the curriculum. Critical thinking is recognized by accrediting bodies as an outcome for graduates of bachelorRead MoreTeaching Strategies Used to Promote Active Learning Essay1159 Words   |  5 Pagessegment of the definition by nature an active endeavor is important because it allows the student to develop her critical thinking skills as well as practice her writing techniques. The student can discuss class material in a less formal setting, which can be beneficial in creating more open-ended discussions for the student. As a teacher, promoting various learning styles is critical because one student learn differently than another. It is an important life lesson a student to understand heRead MoreDiscussion On An Instructional Method962 Words   |  4 PagesDiscussion as an Instructional Method I would use discussion as an instructional method because it is a great interactive learning tool and facilitates listening, teamwork, confidence, critical thinking, critical listening and critical reading. Moreover, classroom discussions can help students sharpen their communication and speaking skills. Classroom discussion helps to dispel myths and preconceived prejudices about others and students tend to develop mutual respect for one and others. Read MoreCritical Thinking And Teaching Methods1648 Words   |  7 Pages but rather accept it and move on. Critical thinking and efficient teaching methods have been suppressed in the current U.S. educational system, and the U.S. is suffering: once one of the front runners in education, the U.S. has fallen to twenty-seventh place according to the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Ironically, the definition of critical thinking, an often-used pedagogical term, requires the process of critical thinking, criticism, and debate, as the definitionRead MoreUse Of Discussion As An Instructional Method863 Words   |  4 PagesI would use discussion as an instructional method because it is a great interactive learning tool and facilitates listening, teamwork, confidence, critical thinking, critical listening and critical reading. Moreover, classroom discussions can help students sharpen their communication and speaking skills. Classroom discussion helps to dispel myths and preconceived prejudices about others and students tend to develop mutual respect for one and others. Above all, discussions foster better understandingRead MoreUnderstanding How Fallacies, Critical Thinking and Decision Making Techniques Are All Linked Togethe1689 Words   |  7 PagesHow it all comes together 1 Understanding how fallacies, critical thinking and decision making techniques are all linked together. What is a logical fallacy? According to the Webster dictionary (1996), a fallacy is a false notion. A statement or argument based on a false or invalid inference. Fallacies can be divided into two different groups; the first one is the fallacy of relevance where the premises are irrelevant to the outcome. The other is fallacy of insufficient evidence, where theRead MoreTechnology Is Becoming More Accessible And Portable Essay1363 Words   |  6 Pagesclassroom. On the other hand, others agree that technology offers sources of distraction, which undermine students’ ability of critical thinking. It is not true, however, that all the technology in classrooms has negative impacts. Thus, it is important to distinguish which kind of technology can help develop critical thinking skills among students. In order to cultivate critical thinking skills in classrooms, technology must be able to support the objectives of the theory of constructivist learning. This

Massacre At Mystic Free Essays

English Puritans assembled an alliance. They all had one goal; eradicate the most powerful tribe in southern New England, The Opaque Tribe. They began conflicting over property, warfare, division of labor and nature. We will write a custom essay sample on Massacre At Mystic or any similar topic only for you Order Now The English thought the Puritan men were lazy because the women did all the cooking and gardening. The alliance made a deal to not harm women or children. On that night, the group, led by John Mason, snuck to the Opaque village, with the Intent to kill the men. The Opaque forces were too strong. The puritans then decided to burn the village, with the Bouquets Inside. Hundreds of Bouquets were killed, as well as some Englishmen, others were sold Into slavery. This, In turn, harmed the elderly, men, women, and children. The massacre was a tragic event that had forever changed America for the natives. The English believed that the only way of life, was their way of life. Their goal was western expansion. The Natives, unfortunately for the English, controlled all of the western land. Puritans manipulated native enemies into killing one another. A systematic idea of killing all Bouquets began only a few weeks later. As a result, the Opaque tribe was considered extinct, even though little remained. The English hoped the few remaining would forget their ways. The Narragansett Tribe, approximately eighty years later, was destroyed in the King Philips War. The final Bouquets reemerged in Connecticut on a reservation appointed by the government. The land was difficult for survival due to insufficient soil and many other factors. Their reservation became smaller and smaller as the English began to take the land for arsenal use or for money. The Puritans goal of wiping out the Opaque Tribe was almost a success. Nearly three hundred years later, only three Opaque remained. They were all elderly women, living alone on the reservation. The women intended to restore the native tribe. Eventually, the land was returned to the Opaque group. The reservation was considered a separate country from the United States. No taxes were enforced, in fact, none were created at all. There was a government and police force established. Enhancement Opaque Museum is a museum that tells of all the vents the occurred in the history of the tribe. The Pesto’s main source of prosperity was the casino they built. It Is still, to this day, the largest casino In the United States. Nevertheless the Opaque Tribe still engages In the same rituals and old traditions practiced before the massacre. They still condemned mistrust and suspicion since the massacre. As of today the Opaque Tribe Is still considered nonexistent. Although some do not consider the Opaque as an active tribe, It Is notorious for their great recovery of the ancient ways and legends of the group. The Puritans we not effected by their expedition because they were under the Impression they were doing good. The tragic event eventually caused prosperity although many lives were taken. If the Puritans had not done this though, America would be a completely different place. The incident did, in fact, change American history and America today. BY Ian-11234 On May 26th, 1637, a group of Narragansett and Monica Native Americans along led by John Mason, snuck to the Opaque village, with the intent to kill the men. The the Bouquets inside. Hundreds of Bouquets were killed, as well as some Englishmen, others were sold into slavery. This, in turn, harmed the elderly, men, women, and prosperity was the casino they built. It is still, to this day, the largest casino in the United States. Nevertheless the Opaque Tribe still engages in the same rituals and suspicion since the massacre. As of today the Opaque Tribe is still considered nonexistent. Although some do not consider the Opaque as an active tribe, it is Puritans we not effected by their expedition because they were under the impression How to cite Massacre At Mystic, Papers

Social Security Association Essays - Social Security,

Social Security Association The Social Security Act was created because of two separate factors, the Industrial Revolution, and the Great Depression. B efore these two events , which shaped the United States to what we know it as today , security for senior citizens had c o me from another source. In this time , prior to the 1930's , America was almost entirely an agricultural nation. A typical life in this period was grow ing up on the farm working the land until people were too old to do it any longer . Once this occurred , extended famil ies would take care of family members until they had passed away, so there was no need for social security. But, as all good things must end , so did th e fairy tale where blood was thicker than water. The Industrial R evolution was what had started it by making the extended family and the family farm less common sources of what was financial security. Then, the Great Depres sion finished off this metamorphosis , so to speak , by making things so economically difficult that it was every family and family member for themselves. Thus, the Social Security Act was born. On June 8th, 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt first spoke of his idea of a social security program to Congress. To tackle the actual creation of such a policy , the President appointed , by Executive Order , the c ommittee on Economic Security. The committee was told to examine the entire problem of economic insecurity and then devise a plan to help those most in need. In early 1935 , the committee made its report to President Roosevelt and by January 17 th , he had introduced the findings of the committee to both houses of Congress so that their idea could be considered. Soon , the houses of Congress could come to a majority decision as the Social Security Act was signed into law on August 14 th , 1935. One of the first things that this act did was establish a bipartisan Social Security Board made up of 3 members who were chosen specifically by the president. The original members of this board included John G. Winant, Arthur J. Altmeyer, and Vincent M. Miles. The duties of the SSB encompassed such things as delegating to the public how earnings were to be reported and the benefits that would be available to them. For Social Security to be effective , the United States government had much more to do. The biggest thing on this to-do list was to register all employers and employees by the deadline January 1 st , 1937 . It would be then that they would start receiving credits towards their old age insurance benefits. To complete this task, the government contracted with the United States Postal Service to deliver applications to the American people. Over 35 million SSN cards were issued via this mass registration between 1936 and 1937 alo ne. Through the Social Security Act , monthly benefits were to begin in 1942. So , from 1937 up until this time, the U.S. paid out single lump-sum payments to retirees. The first man to receive such a payment was Ernest Ackerman, a retired Cleveland motorman. Acker retired the following day of the beginning of this act for which he received a payment o f only 17 cents. This amount was far below the average of $58.06 at the time . The first amendments to the Social Security Act took place in 1939. The amendments added two new benefits, which included payment s to the spouse and underage children of a retired worker , and to the family of a worker in the event of a premature death. The 1939 amendments also increased the benefit amounts which had also quickened the start of monthly benefit checks from 194 0 to 194 2. The next set of amendments were enacted in 1950. These specific amendments were to increase the amount of the benefits which a t the time were still very low. In fact , until 1951, welfare assistance for the elderly exceeded the amount of Social Security benefits. A COLA or cost-of-living-adjustment was first

4 Things Weve Learned From a Redditors Quest for Getting a Raise

4 Things Weve Learned From a Redditors Quest for Getting a Raise Here at TheJobNetwork, we like to think that we’re giving you all the tools you need to succeed in your job hunt and beyond. But for all the expertise, it can seem sometimes like advice is given in a bubble. It’s always great to get real-life feedback about how these concepts and recommendations fly in the real world. And Reddit is a great place to find real-world feedback on, well, anything (good, bad, and hilariously awful). Specifically, one Reddit user has detailed his quest to bump up his salary prospects here. This commenter took an approach I hold dear to my heart: using the Internet to gather advice and apply it to his own job search. And although his 3-week success isn’t especially typical of the average job hunt, he offers a lot of useful information. So what can we take from his lead?1. Dig, dig, dig for information.If you want to know what you’re worth on a professional level, don’t just ballpark it or assume. Check sites like salary.com or glassdoor.com to see what other people in your industry, at your experience level, are making. Do this before you do anything else. Also be sure to bone up on your general negotiating skills- if things start to happen quickly in your job search, you want to be prepared.2. Know yourself and your life well enough to figure out what you’ll accept.A job offer is fantastic, but it’s not necessarily the end. What if the salary number comes in well below what you think you deserve, or what you’ll need to pay the bills? Before you go into a job hunt, know what your lower limit is. This doesn’t have to be hard and fast- if you land a dream position, you might be willing to go a little lower on the salary side. However, if your lifestyle calls for X dollars per year to maintain, a job that offers half that is not likely to work for you. Do some hard thinking about what you’re willing to accept. It can save you some aggravation and heartbreak later. This goes for less tangible factors as well.3. Work the heck out of your network.For all of the advantages that research and your own prep can get you, having a solid network might be the best job search helper of all. The Reddit user regrets not having bolstered his network beforehand- and if he had, there might have been even more offers and pieces of leverage on the table. Before you start applying, start whipping your network into shape.4. Don’t be afraid to go for it.This Redditor wrangled a 45% increase by making a decision (that he was going to commit to a major job search and change) and throwing all of his energies behind it. Again, these results aren’t necessarily typical- we don’t know what his industry, education, or experience level are- but they do show us that with time, commitment, and self-awareness, the goals are achievable.

Different Types of Metaphors

Different Types of Metaphors Metaphors arent merely the candy sprinkles on the doughnut of language, not just embellishments to the music of poetry and prose. Metaphors are ways of thinking- and also ways of shaping the thoughts of others. All people, every day, speak and write, and think in metaphors. In fact, its hard to imagine how people would get by without them. And because figurative comparisons lie at the heart of language and thought, they have been picked apart by scholars in a variety of disciplines. Types of Metaphors There are countless ways of looking at metaphors, thinking about them, and using them. There are countless ways of looking at metaphors, thinking about them, and using them. But in deference to the metaphorical blackbirds of Wallace Stevens (The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds./It was a small part of the pantomime), here are a few of them. Absolute: A metaphor in which one of the terms (the tenor) cant be readily distinguished from the other (the vehicle).Complex: A metaphor in which the literal meaning is expressed through more than one figurative term (a combination of primary metaphors).Conceptual: A metaphor in which one idea (or conceptual domain) is understood in terms of another.Conventional: A familiar comparison that doesnt call attention to itself as a figure of speech.Creative: An original comparison that calls attention to itself as a figure of speech.Dead: A figure of speech that has lost its force and imaginative effectiveness through frequent use.Extended: A comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem.Mixed: A succession of incongruous or ludicrous comparisons.Primary: A basic intuitively understood metaphor such as knowing is seeing or time is motion that may be combined with other primary metaphors to produce complex metaphors. Root: An image, narrative, or fact that shapes an individuals perception of the world and interpretation of reality.Submerged: A type of metaphor in which one of the terms (either the vehicle or tenor) is implied rather than stated explicitly.Therapeutic: A metaphor used by a therapist to assist a client in the process of personal transformation.Visual: The representation of a person, place, thing, or idea by way of a visual image that suggests a particular association or point of similarity. Regardless of the types of metaphors you favor, keep in mind Aristotles observation 2,500 years ago in Rhetoric: Those words are most pleasant which give us new knowledge. Strange words have no meaning for us; common terms we know already. It is metaphor which gives us most of this pleasure.

Marketing plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 2

Marketing plan - Essay Example Second part discusses the international marketing plan and third is the recommendation. Nestle SA is a multinational company that has been successful in holding business in many parts of the world. As a matter of expansion, it is planning to enter a new territory. How they will enter the territory and its marketing strategies will be discussed in this paper. Nestle SA is the holding company of Nestle Group that is based in Switzerland. It was founded by Henri Nestle whose name is retained as company’s name. Its main activities are the development and production of food and beverages. Nestle Group manages the food and beverage activities in three geographical areas (Europe, America and Asia, Oceania and Africa), and globally for Nestle Water, Nestle Nutrition, and other food and beverages). As of 2012, company has employed 328,000 people worldwide and earned CHF 92.2 billion. (Reuters. 2015). Top 3 competitors to Nestle are Mars, Inc., Danone and Mondelez, International, Inc. Company mission of â€Å"Good food, good life† is to provide consumers with the best tasting, most nutritious choices in a wide range of food and beverage categories and eating occasions, from morning to night.†(Reuters. 2015) Discussion about relevant historical developments of India, in this paper, starts in the 19th wherein it was reigned by Great Britain. It was granted independence in 1947 after years of non-violent resistance was staged by its leader Gandhi. Earlier years were not peaceful, since after gaining independence, it was disturbed by three wars with neighboring countries, and the last one was in 1971 that resulted to the separation of Pakistan and India. There were nuclear threats in 1988 and a terrorists attack in Mumbai on the same year. (CIA Worldfactbook, 2015). Country remained calm after this. India’s growth started in 1991 after a series of economic

Voice over Internet Protocol Security Vulnerability and Risk Analysis Literature review

Voice over Internet Protocol Security Vulnerability and Risk Analysis - Literature review Example In modern times different means and mechanisms are being introduced for establishing communication with one another. The aim behind all of them has been to work on those lines that ensure reliable, fast and economical sources that can enable connecting people from across the borders and shores. The progress so made is so immense that people sitting across the continent can get in touch and see each other in matter of few seconds. Different means exist for such concepts. All those means of communication that have existed in history were conducted with a concern and consideration of privacy in them. This is achieved through encryption of data that is being exchanged between the two points. Voice over I.P (VOIP) is one of them. It has gained popularity in recent times and is being widely used .Like every other system in the field of telecommunications; VOIP has its strengths as well as weaknesses. Like every other internet utility, it has its own vulnerabilities and security concerns. This paper looks into the vulnerabilities and risks affiliated with it, further touching on the features being provided by it along with its working principles in brief. The paper also looks into the role of Voice over I.P Security Alliance and its efforts to meeting the demands in terms of narrowing down the vulnerabilities that exist in various forms. Keywords: VoIP, Open standard, Vulnerability, Denial of Service. ... VOIP is established on the concept of open standards to maximum its use and accessibility (Ellis, Pursell & Rahman,pg 250, 2003). Interoperability is another feature that is making inroads across the platform all over. Having mentioned the features that are being provided by VOIP, a serious concern is being raised about its security aspect. Many a times it is being tagged as vulnerable in terms of security aspects. For this purpose efforts are needed to be in place which will insure the safety of all parameters involved in this. This is possible through study of all those areas which have loop holes in them and further working on those areas will make this a safe source of communication for customers to use. VOIP is a generic term for number of applications intended for establishing connection (Persky 2007); it could be the chat client establishment, the phone call conversation, the SMS service establishment. VOIP makes use of number of protocols that contain both the open protocols and proprietary protocols. Through the use of single broadband line, VOIP enables sending voice signals, data that includes textual format and video format information. The vulnerabilities are not just limited to its usage and application, rather operating systems, and protocols used (McGann & Sicker 2005). Types of calls possible with VOIP: Unicast calls: This kind of calling conversation involves the minimum number of parties, one at each end. It is the SIP or H.323 based call. Mostly the traffic and conversation is not encrypted and hence unsafe. Multi cast calls (limited number of callers): This includes more than two users involved in a conversation at one time. Usually a conference call where the first two establish a

Essay --

Keanu Jefferson Mrs. Smith English 10-Period 4th 10 February 2014 â€Å"Dr. Heidegger's Experiment† And The Affects It Has Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July fourth, eighteen o four in Salem, Massachusetts, to a family that had been prominent in the area for a long period of time. â€Å"Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment† was written in 1837 by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Nathaniel Hawthorne was not always interested in education, but he went to Bowdoin College in 1821. He would be the only person in his family to ever to go to college. He was prepared by Dr. Benjamin Lynde Oliver for college and the college experience. He really did not care about school or interested in any type of particular type of profession, but still went to collage anyway. He studied most of the classics some including mathematics, philosophy, composition, and natural science. During his college years he met many people, including future president Franklin Pierce. Hawthorne's use of obsession, desire, and experience was established in the theme in the short story â€Å"Dr. Heidegger's Experiment†. In the early and mid ei ghteen thirty's everybody was taking about the fountain of youth and the affects to make you younger it has. The theme to this story was based on this fact. When Hawthorne was writing â€Å"Dr.. Heidegger's Experiment† he must have been thinking about the fountain of youth, desire, experience, and the obsession of life so it influenced this story to be the way he wrote it.. People often say â€Å"If I had my life to live over again. I would not be where I am at right now. I would use my experience that I have gotten to really better my life.† this story can make people think about having another shot and if they did have another shot at life how they would do everything d... ...esire something so bad that you will put effort into papers and try to pass test so you can get these things. If you desire these things then you would not mind putting a little effort into it. Nathaniel Hawthorne died on May nineteen,eighteen sixty four,. Hawthorne was a very active man and was very healthy. Hawthorne health started to fail him. He would not go see in doctors or anything to find out what was wrong with him. There is no details on the way he died . His death up to this day is still a mystery and no records to this day exist to find out the way he died. Some people say he died of cardiac arrest ,but there is no proof to this day about what happened to him. He went to New Hampshire hills a place that he loved to go to hoping to regain his health. He went there went his old friend Franklin Pierce. Nathaniel Hawthorne died on the second day of the trip.

Is Oracle Dying

Oracle Corporation was founded in Jun 1977 by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner, Ed Oates. Over the years, it has risen to become almost indisputable leader of the Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) market with 44% (Source: IDC 2009) – at least, for now, though, no one is sure how long that numero uno position will last. There were heady days of 1996-2008 or so when Oracle ruled the world of RDBMS. It was unchallenged crown king that could do no wrong. Hundreds of thousands of Database engineers, architects, administrators spoke of Oracle as if it was actually the famed â€Å"Oracle of Delphi†.Conference passes to Oracle Open World were so coveted that it was distributed to star employees in any company using Oracle Products. However, after 2008, the downward spiral has been very perceptible to the database communities. The hush-hush talks could now be heard very loud and clear. Only that Oracle was perhaps hearing but valiantly choosing not to listen. It continued to maintain the arrogance of a star past its prime – denying that it was aging, claiming that the talent would always trump the age.I think the Oracle Goliath had forgotten that for every arrogant Goliath, there is a David that is bound to introduce it to its nemesis. But my guess this downward spiral perhaps set into motion long before 2008 or so when world started noticing it. Time machine Let us trace Oracle Journey through its very meager beginnings and how it lost its course along the way. The chronological sequence of this journey could be roughly as I have shown below:- 1977   SDL (Oracle's predecessor) founded 1978    Oracle Version 1 developed 1979    First commercial SQL RDBMS 983  Ã‚   Oracle Version 3, first RDBMS developed to run on mainframes, PC, minicomputers, VMS 1984  Ã‚   first RDBMS to offer read-consistency 1985    Released of Oracle Version 5, first RDBMS in client/server environments 1986  Ã‚   Oracle IPO (NASDAQ) 1987  Ã‚   Rises to numbe r one in the world for RDBMS, Oracle gets into building enterprise applications 1988  Ã‚   Oracle Version 6 with several new features: PL/SQL, Row-level locking 1989  Ã‚   Oracle provides DB support for OLTP and moves its HQ to Redwood Shores, California 1990  Ã‚   Launches Oracle Applications Release 8 992  Ã‚   Launched Oracle 7, offers full applications implementation methodology 1993  Ã‚   Client/server environments enhancements 1994  Ã‚   Oracle receives the industry’s first security clearance 1995    Debuts first 64-bit RDBMS 1996  Ã‚   Releases feature rich 7. 3, with different types of data types – text, maps, audio, video, or images, develops an open standards-based, web-enabled architecture 1998  Ã‚   Oracle8 Database ; Oracle Applications 10. 7 – first enterprise computing company to use Java 1999  Ã‚   Offers its first DBMS with XML support 2000  Ã‚   Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i 001  Ã‚   Oracle9i Database with Oracle RAC,   first RDBMS to complete 3 terabyte TPC-H record 2002   Oracle RDBMS passes 15 industry standard security evaluations – first RDBMS to achieve this 2003   Oracle debuts Oracle Database 10g, more robust clustering software 2004   Declares Oracle â€Å"the Information Company† and spreads into many other areas 2005   Acquires rival PeopleSoft, releases first free database, Oracle 10g XE 2006  Ã‚   Declares a 30-year commitment for open standards computing, giving customers â€Å"Unbreakable Linux† 2008   HP Oracle Database Machine/Exadata storage 009  Ã‚  Gets into too many things – including BEA products, launch of Oracle Fusion Middleware, 11g advance Oracle 2010  Ã‚   Oracle acquires Sun Microsystems, announces Sun based Exadata/Exalogic machines 2011  Ã‚   Keeps adding bells and whistles to same Exadata/Exalogic machines 2012  Ã‚   Announces initiative focused on Cloud Rise of Oracle Most of the engineers in software industry were not even born when in late seventies, it struck young Larry Ellison, after reading paper written by Dr Edgar F.Codd (1970) on relational database management systems titled â€Å"A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks†, that a software could be designed that could follow the principles of relational databases. His belief was reinforced when he read another article, published in the IBM Research Journal, and authored by Ed Oates (IBM) about the IBM System R database. System R itself was based on Codd's theories. In 1977, Ellison co-founded Oracle Corporation with Bob Miner and Ed Oates under the name Software Development Laboratories (SDL) and in 1979, SDL was rechristened as Relational Software, Inc. nly to change its name again in 1982 to Oracle Systems Corporation. In 1995, Oracle Systems Corporation changed its name to Oracle Corporation. From 1979 through 1992, Oracle primarily focused its attention on making its flagship product, Oracle RDBMS, strong . Oracle was getting complacent after version 5 and then it came out with version 6 – this was huge fiasco product and it was nightmare for customer support and Oracle support. Corporate customers were threatening to pull off Oracle.Version 6 was quickly followed up by version 7 which saved the day for Oracle. 7. 34 turned out to be very stable product. Version 8i, 9i and 10g added to Oracle RDBMS core competence. These versions by themselves attracted customers to Oracle. If everything was so good, continues to be good then why do I particularly feel that Oracle could be dying as a company? Lack of Level 5 leadership Oracle has been led by Larry Ellison all these years. Larry is a level 4 leader – wish he was level 5.Under his leadership, Oracle has always focused on â€Å"what† should be done and â€Å"how† will it be done. Level 5 CEOs first focus on â€Å"who† and then on â€Å"what† and â€Å"how†. People part of the equation rem ains very flaky, to say the least, with Oracle. It has been notoriously uncaring about exodus of top talent. Many ex-Oracle top performers have gone on to form companies, rise to be C staff, unleash innovations but Oracle didn’t really do anything specific to stop the fleeing top talent.Also, like many other celebrity CEOs, Ellison is getting two distracted by things that his company should not be focusing on – example, Oracle’s American Cup sponsorship, Ellison’s many prime properties, Ellison’s unflinching support for former ousted HP CEO and great friend Mark Hurd, Ellison’s purchasing Lanai Island. All these have direct impact on Oracle’s future – why? Because all these are issues that distract the CEO. Same thing happened with Lee Iacocca – once he turned around Chrysler, he focused more on politics, image building, helping White House ith many initiatives which distracted him from his duties as CEO. And Chrysler sl id back into the mess that it had recovered from. Mark’s hiring into Oracle forced Ellison to send Charles Phillips off. Charles was a great executive and leader recognized for his talent in and outside Oracle. Letting a great leader go in favor of a friend whose moral ethics are somewhat doubtful never went well with the employees. Also, Oracle doesn’t have conversations like â€Å"what can we do to stop you from leaving† with most of their top talent attritions. 5 Phases of a perilous corporationAny company going through the general growth, if not managed in a disciplined manner, can hurtle itself into peril. Jim Collins brings this out very succinctly in his book â€Å"How the Mighty Fall – any why some companies never give in†. The 5 stages of this journey from greatness to perish are very perceptible when they happen. The Path to Destruction I suspect Oracle’s downward spiral started after 2001-2002 (or at least sometime during that per iod). It could not come to terms with the ever high stock price of more than $45 and started becoming greedy.Perhaps under some implicit or explicit mandate from Uncle Larry, the sales people were sent marching to see how much more they could milk out of their unsuspecting and totally Oracle dependent customers. And perhaps the sales people came back with the message that customers would not mind paying more for the crown jewel product – core RDBMS as well as Oracle ERP Suite – 11i. Oracle (read, Larry Ellison) could not stand competition – especially those then started looking at how to kill rivals – hostile and non-hostile acquisitions of rival JD Edwards, PeopleSoft and Siebel.Every growing company reaches a point where growth starts flattening – happened with Apple, happened with Google and will happen with next big shinning company as well – Oracle was not particularly immune to it so in an attempt to resuscitate its flattening growth, largely due to its flagship core RDBMS product, Oracle started developing another front that it could open – this was business of application servers – an exploding market back in the day.An application server is packaged software that developers use to write and deploy web specific applications. The market had exploded past decade or so since many application server vendors were trying to build dynamic applications for the web and mobile devices. For Oracle the lure was that the market had the potential to perhaps become as lucrative as their core database market.Oracle was very late entrant into this market but it quickly acquired BEA Software (leader in the space at that point) and started competing neck to neck with IBM WebSphere. Within Oracle, Application Server business is viewed as â€Å"third business† besides core RDBMS and ERP. Oracle built its business around data bases and from the very beginning it has dominated the database market, providing the d ata stores and central repositories to store critical business information that businesses must maintain, use and safeguard to complete transactions.This has given it almost a monopoly and a very superior position when negotiating with customers. Oracle’s sales team that is always scavenging to find new sources of revenues, capitalizes on such an edge and leverages it to squeeze every dollar out of the customers – rightfully earning a fearsome reputation of being â€Å"hard-line negotiators† – and they are squeezing where it hurts the customers most – at their licensing and support costs.However, like it had opened a third front by getting into Application Servers market, it has since then opened many more such fronts via its acquisition spree – Oracle has expanded well beyond just the databases and application servers and entered the business software domain as well, acquiring leader companies in domains related to technology infrastructure , sales, employees, inventory and customers. People typically use products from these acquired companies to track information related to these important entities. Undisciplined growth In their pursuit to keep up with their YoY growth, Oracle has descended into a very undisciplined growth.There was also very unreasonable desire to grow into every domain. While growing via acquisitions, Oracle Executive Management has forgotten that it is not simply enough to acquire good companies, it takes good and dedicated diligence to grow them into great companies. Some of the companies Oracle acquired are as under (source – http://www. oracle. com):- 2013 Feb-13Acme PacketNetworking hardware for telecommunications service providers 2012 Dec-12Eloqua Marketing Automation platform for managing sales and marketing leads across an enterprise.Dec-12DataRakerCloud based Analytic platform to transform meter, customer, network and asset Big Data into actionable business intelligence. Nov-12Insta ntisCloud and premises-based PPM – Project Portfolio Management applications. Sep-12SelectMindsCloud-based social talent sourcing and corporate alumni management application Jul-12Xsigo SystemsProvider of network virtualization technology that simplifies cloud infrastructure and operations Jul-12SkireSolutions provider for managing capital projects, facilities and real estate Jul-12InvolverSocial media development platformJun-12Collective IntellectCloud-based social intelligence solutions May-12VitrueSocial Marketing Platform provider Mar-12ClearTrialCloud-based Clinical Trial Operations and Analytics products Feb-12TaleoTalent Management Software 2011 Oct-11RightNow TechnologiesCloud-based CRM Oct-11EndecaE-commerce & Business Intelligence Sep-11GoAHead Service Availability and Management Software Jul-11InQuiraService Knowledge Management Software Jul-11KspliceRebootless Linux kernel updates Jun-11 FatWire Software Web Content and Web Experience Management (WCM and WEM) Soft ware Jun-11Pillar Data Systems Storage systemsApr-11Datanomic Data Quality Software Feb-11Ndevr – Select IP only Environmental Reporting and Business Intelligence 2010 Nov-10 Art Technology GroupEcommerce software vendor May-10 Pre-Paid Software Payment Solutions May-10 Market2LeadApplications May-10 Secerno Data protection hardware and software Apr-10Phase Forward Applications for life sciences companies and healthcare providers Feb-10AmberPoint Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) management Feb-10Convergin Telecom Service BrokerJan-10Sun Microsystems Computer servers, storage, networks, Java, MySQL, software, and services Jan-10Silver Creek SystemsProduct Data Quality Solutions for connecting Enterprise Systems, Customers, Suppliers and Partners. 2009 Oct-09SOPHOI Intellectual property management for Media & Entertainment Industry Sep-09HyperRoll Financials, software and IT services Jun-09Conformia Product Lifecycle Management May-09Virtual Iron Software Server Virtualizati on Management Software Mar-09Relsys International Drug Safety and Risk Management 2008Oct-08Haley (RuleBurst Holdings) Natural Language Business Rules / Policy Automation Oct-08Advanced Visual Technology Retail Space Planning Oct-08Primavera Project Portfolio Management Jun-08Skywire Software Document Management May-08AdminServer Insurance Policy Administration Jan-08BEA Systems Enterprise Software 2007 Dec-07MoniforceReal User Experience Monitoring Sep-07BridgestreamEnterprise Role Management software Jul-07Bharosa, IncOnline Identity Theft and Fraud Detection May-07Agile Software CorporationProduct Lifecycle Management Apr-07Lodestar CorporationUtilities Application SoftwareMar-07Hyperion CorporationEnterprise Performance Management Mar-07Tangosol IncDatagrid Software 2006 Nov-06Stellent Inc. Universal Content Management, Digital Rights Management Nov-06SPL WorldGroupUtility Billing and Customer Service Systems Oct-06SunopsisETL, Data Integration Oct-06MetaSolvOSS service activati on Jun-06DemantraDemand-Driven Planning Solution [email  protected] IP-based Contact Center Solution Apr-06Portal Software Billing and Revenue Management solutions for communications and media industry Feb-06HotSipCommunications infrastructure solutionsFeb-06Sleepycat Software Open-source database software for embedded applications Jan-06360CommerceRetail Industry Solutions Jan-06Siebel SystemsCustomer relationship management 2005 Dec-05Temposoft Workforce Management Applications sam organization Nov-05OctetString Virtual Directory Solutions Nov-05Thor Technologies Enterprise-wide User Provisioning Solutions. Oct-05Innobase Discrete Transactional Open Source Database Technology Sep-05G-LogTransportation Management Solutions Aug-05i-flexBanking Industry Solutions Jul-05Context MediaEnterprise Content IntegrationJul-05ProfitLogicRetail Industry Solutions Jun-05TimesTenReal-time Enterprise Solutions Jun-05TripleHopContext-sensitive Enterprise Search Apr-05RetekRetail Industry Solutio ns Mar-05OblixIdentity Management Solutions Jan-05PeopleSoftEnterprise Software 2004 Jun-04CollaxaBusiness process management May-04 PhaosIdentity management Jan-04SiteWorks Solutions Clinical trials management 2003 Jun-03ReliatyEnterprise data protection Jun-03FileFishEnterprise content management 2002 Jun-02SteltorEnterprise calendaring system Jan-02NetForce Adverse event reporting systemJan-02Indicast Voice portals Jan-02TopLink Object-relation mapping technology 1999 Jun-99Thinking Machines Corporation datamining technology 1995 Aug-95IRI Software OLAP products 1994 Oct-94Rdb (A division of DEC) Relational database The early acquisitions show Oracle focus on growing its databases market but acquisitions of past few years including very surprising $5 Billion acquisition of Sun MicroSystems do not give us good sense of where Oracle’s focus is. The strategic theme in Oracle’s acquisition spree is missing and seems more like reactions of leadership focusing only on â⠂¬Å"growth†.Take a look at spread of Oracle into sectors and even a layman would agree that it is stretching itself far too thin. If people outside of Oracle can’t understand why Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, the confusion is equally evident inside Oracle as well. No one can put a figure on if Oracle acquired Sun for hardware market entry point or MySQL or Sun Solaris OS or was it a combination of all these and then some. Oracle has come out with an integrated ERP product suite – Fusion. The sales teams do not fully comprehend how to package Fusion compared to Oracle 12 version.As such Fusion itself is at least four years too late. In its attempt to create a unified platform for ERP software, it has managed to successfully scare customer who want just a small focused set of modules – like AR and GL or Manufacturing. There was Steve Jobs who made the famous statement that â€Å"†¦we tell customers what they want†¦Ã¢â‚¬ . Larry Ellison can ma ke the same claim – but to be successful at doing that, you have to be a visionary and not be distracted so hopelessly as Ellison currently is. And, customers seem to be last thing that Oracle considers while deciding these moves.For example, many of Sun’s largest former customers were large Wall Street financial institutions, and they were really miffed last year when Oracle wanted to restrict their server and operating system choices to only Sun technologies. They relentlessly pushed back and Oracle had to ultimately give in to their defiance, reaffirming deals that would let companies like HP and Dell offer Sun software on their respective hardware. â€Å"Customers will always gripe about giving too much control to any one company,† said Israel Hernandez, director of software research at Barclays Capital.Larry Ellison runs Oracle likes his personal fiefdom. The Oracle Board of Directors is merely a formality that is maintained to satisfy the Wall Street and S EC. Most decisions are taken unilaterally by Ellison and his leadership team. For example the 2010 hiring of ex-HP CEO, Mark Hurd, as a co-president after Hurd was fired by HP board due to sexual harassment allegations. Analysts viewed the hiring as a positive outcome for Oracle as it looked to expand. However, Mr. Hurd’s arrival was quickly followed by departure of one ofOracle long-timer, Charles Phillips. At one time, Charles was touted as Ellison’s protege and likely successor. Oracle customers are worried about putting all their eggs in one basket. Almost every company that they tend to do business is being bought by Oracle – much to customers’ dislike. And for hosts of Oracle’s Annual Open World program, San Francisco city officials are running into dilemma of saying â€Å"No† to Oracle at some point for hosting the event, simply because it is unlikely that city could survive the demands of an Oracle four times its current size.A look at its portfolio will tell you more about scary reach and disappointing and unfocused spread that Oracle has now – 110 product lines spread across 14 different domains. (source – http://www. oracle. com):- DATABASE DataScaler (October 2010) e-Test (acquired from Empirix) (March 2008) Innobase (October 2005) Moniforce (December 2007) mValent (February 2009) Secerno (May 2010) Sleepycat (February 2006) TimesTen (June 2005) TripleHop (June 2005) MIDDLEWARE AmberPoint (February 2010) BEA (January 2008) Bharosa (July 2007) Bridgestream (September 2007) Captovation (January 2008)ClearApp (September 2008) Context Media (July 2005) Datanomic (April 2011) FatWire (June 2011) HyperRoll (September 2009) GoldenGate (July 2009) Java (April 2009) Oblix (March 2005) OctetString (November 2005) Passlogix (October 2010) Sigma Dynamics (August 2006) Silver Creek Systems (January 2010) Stellent (November 2006) Sunopsis (October 2006) Tacit Software (November 2008) Tangosol (March 2007) T hor Technologies (November 2005) APPLICATIONS AppForge (April 2007) Collective Intellect (June 2012) Eloqua (December 2012) Haley (October 2008) InQuira (July 2011) Interlace Systems (October 2007)Involver (July 2012) LogicalApps (October 2007) Market2Lead (May 2010) Ndevr (February 2011) RightNow (October 2011) SelectMinds (September 2012) Taleo (February 2012) TempoSoft (December 2005) Vitrue (May 2012) PRODUCT LINES Agile (May 2007) ATG (November 2010) Endeca (October 2011) Hyperion (March 2007) PeopleSoft (January 2005) Primavera (October 2008) Siebel (January 2006) [email  protected] (June 2006) IMPLEMENTATION AND INTEGRATION TOOLS Global Knowledge Software (GKS) (July 2008) SERVERS, STORAGE, AND NETWORKING Ksplice (July 2011) Pillar Data Systems (June 2011Sun (April 2009) Xsigo Systems (July 2012) Virtual Iron (May 2009) INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS COMMUNICATIONS AND MEDIA Acme Packet (February 2013) (pending) Convergin (February 2010) eServGlobal's Universal Service Platform (USP) ( May 2010) GoAhead (September 2011) HotSip (February 2006) MetaSolv Software (October 2006) Net4Call (April 2006) Netsure Telecom Limited (September 2007) Portal Software (April 2006) Sophoi (October 2009) ENGINEERING AND CONSTRUCTION Instantis (November 2012) Primavera (October 2008) Skire (July 2012) FINANCIAL SERVICES i-flex (August 2005)HEALTH SCIENCES ClearTrial (March 2012) Phase Forward (April 2010) Relsys (March 2009) INDUSTRIAL MANUFACTURING Agile (May 2007) Conformia Software (June 2009) Demantra (June 2006) G-Log (September 2005) INSURANCE AdminServer (May 2008) Skywire Software (June 2008) RETAIL 360Commerce (January 2006) Advanced Visual Technology (AVT) (October 2008) ProfitLogic (July 2005) Retek (April 2005) UTILITIES DataRaker (December 2012) SPL WorldGroup (November 2006) LODESTAR (April 2007) Failure to Admit Reality It is also felt that Oracle executive management is out of touch with reality.The typical strategy is to first make fun of competitors, then ridicule them and finally scare the wits out of the customers who were even thinking of adopting competitors’ products. If the competition still survives all this and continues to grow then Oracle does one of the two things – either it buys the competition or simply buys the number two in that space. They did this for Sun, HP, NetApp, EMC, VMWare, Siebel, PeopleSoft, Salesforce, Microsoft (for MS SQL Server). Most of the times, customers can see through this and continue their adaptation of new products from customers.Most recent examples are Oracle’s taking potshots for two consecutive years in Oracle Open World 2010 and 2011 at Salesforce. com and then when it couldn’t wean away customers from Salesforce. com or slow down the ramp up, it launched its own versions of cloud offerings in 2012 Open World. Sun MicroSystems â€Å"Millstone† Around the Neck Whatever be the underlying rationale for purchase of Sun MicroSystems, Oracle is now challenged to make th e whole acquisition viable. It now finds itself in the territory of hardware market that its sales team is so ill-equipped to sell.The only option it had was to turn the Sun hardware into Exadata, Exalogic and Exalytic Servers and try to hoodwink the customers into buying this â€Å"supreme† computing machines. Much to its chagrin, not many customers are biting this new set of baits. Dark â€Å"Cloud† Space For a long time – almost three years – Oracle made fun of Salesforce. com, Amazon and Microsoft – specifically for their cloud services. It positioned the Exadata and Exalogic servers as new cloud servers that could provide as much computing power as tens of commodity hosts from these vendors cloud offerings.However, around late 2011-2012, it became very clear to Oracle that Cloud hosting and cloud based multi-tenancy software are the future and it scrambled to buy as many Cloud services based companies as it could – examples are RightNow , Taleo, Virtue – all acquired within months of each other in 2011-12. Oracle needs to realize that just acquisition of a company by and in itself doesn’t position Oracle as a leader in that space – acquisition is just the start – Oracle thereafter needs to retain the talent in that company, invest and grow the company, integrate it seamlessly within Oracle’s other relevant product lines.Unfortunately for Oracle, these are also the areas where it has failed most of the times in the past. Grasping for straws Good news first, Oracle has not yet reached this stage yet – in this stage, very perceptible symptoms are – changing CEOs and executive staff in quick rotation and changing the product directions every so often. However, there is bound to be a moment, not in very distant future, when we will find that eople will become so weary of Oracle products that Ellison will be either dislodged by a hostile board or will leave on his own. He has essentially no succession plan in place except bunch of execs like Thomas Kurian or Mark Hurd who can stake their claim to the crown. Thomas is well respected within the company but lacks charisma and chutzpah of Ellison. Mark may not be as respected but has good experience of cutting costs – like he did at HP. Death KnellIn this stage, a company either slowly vanishes into irrelevance or is acquired or merged into another competitor or goes belly up. For the sake of hundreds of thousands of professionals using, preaching and earning their bread from Oracle Technologies, I just hope Oracle never reaches that stage. Out of hundreds of companies that passed through this stage and vanished into oblivion, only two companies have thus far ever recovered from this stage – Xerox and Apple. Once again, I am sincerely hoping that Oracle never reaches this stage.Will it be able to recover from this downward spiral? Oracle can arrest this dance towards its vanishing into obli vion – question that really begs for an answer is – will it have the honesty to first admit and then stop this march? First of all, Oracle should focus and determine its core strength and then focus on building up on those. There is no prudence demonstrated in draining money on acquisitions and then selling those companies at markdown, or worst, writing off the charge as a loss.It is about time Oracle give up its greed on squeezing more money out of its customer and first create products and value that customers will willingly play obscene amount of money for. References: http://finance. yahoo. com http://www. oracle. com http://www. nytimes. com/2010/09/22/technology/22oracle. html? _r=0 http://www. forbes. com/2001/10/29/1029orcl. html http://www. zdnet. com/oracles-customers-a-bit-baffled-by-fusion-strategy-says-report-7000011143/ http://www. networkworld. com/news/2013/011713-oracle-cloud-265922. html How the Mighty Fall: And why some companies never give in â€⠀œ by Jim Collins, Is Oracle Dying Oracle Corporation was founded in Jun 1977 by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner, Ed Oates. Over the years, it has risen to become almost indisputable leader of the Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) market with 44% (Source: IDC 2009) – at least, for now, though, no one is sure how long that numero uno position will last. There were heady days of 1996-2008 or so when Oracle ruled the world of RDBMS. It was unchallenged crown king that could do no wrong. Hundreds of thousands of Database engineers, architects, administrators spoke of Oracle as if it was actually the famed â€Å"Oracle of Delphi†.Conference passes to Oracle Open World were so coveted that it was distributed to star employees in any company using Oracle Products. However, after 2008, the downward spiral has been very perceptible to the database communities. The hush-hush talks could now be heard very loud and clear. Only that Oracle was perhaps hearing but valiantly choosing not to listen. It continued to maintain the arrogance of a star past its prime – denying that it was aging, claiming that the talent would always trump the age.I think the Oracle Goliath had forgotten that for every arrogant Goliath, there is a David that is bound to introduce it to its nemesis. But my guess this downward spiral perhaps set into motion long before 2008 or so when world started noticing it. Time machine Let us trace Oracle Journey through its very meager beginnings and how it lost its course along the way. The chronological sequence of this journey could be roughly as I have shown below:- 1977   SDL (Oracle's predecessor) founded 1978    Oracle Version 1 developed 1979    First commercial SQL RDBMS 983  Ã‚   Oracle Version 3, first RDBMS developed to run on mainframes, PC, minicomputers, VMS 1984  Ã‚   first RDBMS to offer read-consistency 1985    Released of Oracle Version 5, first RDBMS in client/server environments 1986  Ã‚   Oracle IPO (NASDAQ) 1987  Ã‚   Rises to numbe r one in the world for RDBMS, Oracle gets into building enterprise applications 1988  Ã‚   Oracle Version 6 with several new features: PL/SQL, Row-level locking 1989  Ã‚   Oracle provides DB support for OLTP and moves its HQ to Redwood Shores, California 1990  Ã‚   Launches Oracle Applications Release 8 992  Ã‚   Launched Oracle 7, offers full applications implementation methodology 1993  Ã‚   Client/server environments enhancements 1994  Ã‚   Oracle receives the industry’s first security clearance 1995    Debuts first 64-bit RDBMS 1996  Ã‚   Releases feature rich 7. 3, with different types of data types – text, maps, audio, video, or images, develops an open standards-based, web-enabled architecture 1998  Ã‚   Oracle8 Database ; Oracle Applications 10. 7 – first enterprise computing company to use Java 1999  Ã‚   Offers its first DBMS with XML support 2000  Ã‚   Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i 001  Ã‚   Oracle9i Database with Oracle RAC,   first RDBMS to complete 3 terabyte TPC-H record 2002   Oracle RDBMS passes 15 industry standard security evaluations – first RDBMS to achieve this 2003   Oracle debuts Oracle Database 10g, more robust clustering software 2004   Declares Oracle â€Å"the Information Company† and spreads into many other areas 2005   Acquires rival PeopleSoft, releases first free database, Oracle 10g XE 2006  Ã‚   Declares a 30-year commitment for open standards computing, giving customers â€Å"Unbreakable Linux† 2008   HP Oracle Database Machine/Exadata storage 009  Ã‚  Gets into too many things – including BEA products, launch of Oracle Fusion Middleware, 11g advance Oracle 2010  Ã‚   Oracle acquires Sun Microsystems, announces Sun based Exadata/Exalogic machines 2011  Ã‚   Keeps adding bells and whistles to same Exadata/Exalogic machines 2012  Ã‚   Announces initiative focused on Cloud Rise of Oracle Most of the engineers in software industry were not even born when in late seventies, it struck young Larry Ellison, after reading paper written by Dr Edgar F.Codd (1970) on relational database management systems titled â€Å"A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks†, that a software could be designed that could follow the principles of relational databases. His belief was reinforced when he read another article, published in the IBM Research Journal, and authored by Ed Oates (IBM) about the IBM System R database. System R itself was based on Codd's theories. In 1977, Ellison co-founded Oracle Corporation with Bob Miner and Ed Oates under the name Software Development Laboratories (SDL) and in 1979, SDL was rechristened as Relational Software, Inc. nly to change its name again in 1982 to Oracle Systems Corporation. In 1995, Oracle Systems Corporation changed its name to Oracle Corporation. From 1979 through 1992, Oracle primarily focused its attention on making its flagship product, Oracle RDBMS, strong . Oracle was getting complacent after version 5 and then it came out with version 6 – this was huge fiasco product and it was nightmare for customer support and Oracle support. Corporate customers were threatening to pull off Oracle.Version 6 was quickly followed up by version 7 which saved the day for Oracle. 7. 34 turned out to be very stable product. Version 8i, 9i and 10g added to Oracle RDBMS core competence. These versions by themselves attracted customers to Oracle. If everything was so good, continues to be good then why do I particularly feel that Oracle could be dying as a company? Lack of Level 5 leadership Oracle has been led by Larry Ellison all these years. Larry is a level 4 leader – wish he was level 5.Under his leadership, Oracle has always focused on â€Å"what† should be done and â€Å"how† will it be done. Level 5 CEOs first focus on â€Å"who† and then on â€Å"what† and â€Å"how†. People part of the equation rem ains very flaky, to say the least, with Oracle. It has been notoriously uncaring about exodus of top talent. Many ex-Oracle top performers have gone on to form companies, rise to be C staff, unleash innovations but Oracle didn’t really do anything specific to stop the fleeing top talent.Also, like many other celebrity CEOs, Ellison is getting two distracted by things that his company should not be focusing on – example, Oracle’s American Cup sponsorship, Ellison’s many prime properties, Ellison’s unflinching support for former ousted HP CEO and great friend Mark Hurd, Ellison’s purchasing Lanai Island. All these have direct impact on Oracle’s future – why? Because all these are issues that distract the CEO. Same thing happened with Lee Iacocca – once he turned around Chrysler, he focused more on politics, image building, helping White House ith many initiatives which distracted him from his duties as CEO. And Chrysler sl id back into the mess that it had recovered from. Mark’s hiring into Oracle forced Ellison to send Charles Phillips off. Charles was a great executive and leader recognized for his talent in and outside Oracle. Letting a great leader go in favor of a friend whose moral ethics are somewhat doubtful never went well with the employees. Also, Oracle doesn’t have conversations like â€Å"what can we do to stop you from leaving† with most of their top talent attritions. 5 Phases of a perilous corporationAny company going through the general growth, if not managed in a disciplined manner, can hurtle itself into peril. Jim Collins brings this out very succinctly in his book â€Å"How the Mighty Fall – any why some companies never give in†. The 5 stages of this journey from greatness to perish are very perceptible when they happen. The Path to Destruction I suspect Oracle’s downward spiral started after 2001-2002 (or at least sometime during that per iod). It could not come to terms with the ever high stock price of more than $45 and started becoming greedy.Perhaps under some implicit or explicit mandate from Uncle Larry, the sales people were sent marching to see how much more they could milk out of their unsuspecting and totally Oracle dependent customers. And perhaps the sales people came back with the message that customers would not mind paying more for the crown jewel product – core RDBMS as well as Oracle ERP Suite – 11i. Oracle (read, Larry Ellison) could not stand competition – especially those then started looking at how to kill rivals – hostile and non-hostile acquisitions of rival JD Edwards, PeopleSoft and Siebel.Every growing company reaches a point where growth starts flattening – happened with Apple, happened with Google and will happen with next big shinning company as well – Oracle was not particularly immune to it so in an attempt to resuscitate its flattening growth, largely due to its flagship core RDBMS product, Oracle started developing another front that it could open – this was business of application servers – an exploding market back in the day.An application server is packaged software that developers use to write and deploy web specific applications. The market had exploded past decade or so since many application server vendors were trying to build dynamic applications for the web and mobile devices. For Oracle the lure was that the market had the potential to perhaps become as lucrative as their core database market.Oracle was very late entrant into this market but it quickly acquired BEA Software (leader in the space at that point) and started competing neck to neck with IBM WebSphere. Within Oracle, Application Server business is viewed as â€Å"third business† besides core RDBMS and ERP. Oracle built its business around data bases and from the very beginning it has dominated the database market, providing the d ata stores and central repositories to store critical business information that businesses must maintain, use and safeguard to complete transactions.This has given it almost a monopoly and a very superior position when negotiating with customers. Oracle’s sales team that is always scavenging to find new sources of revenues, capitalizes on such an edge and leverages it to squeeze every dollar out of the customers – rightfully earning a fearsome reputation of being â€Å"hard-line negotiators† – and they are squeezing where it hurts the customers most – at their licensing and support costs.However, like it had opened a third front by getting into Application Servers market, it has since then opened many more such fronts via its acquisition spree – Oracle has expanded well beyond just the databases and application servers and entered the business software domain as well, acquiring leader companies in domains related to technology infrastructure , sales, employees, inventory and customers. People typically use products from these acquired companies to track information related to these important entities. Undisciplined growth In their pursuit to keep up with their YoY growth, Oracle has descended into a very undisciplined growth.There was also very unreasonable desire to grow into every domain. While growing via acquisitions, Oracle Executive Management has forgotten that it is not simply enough to acquire good companies, it takes good and dedicated diligence to grow them into great companies. Some of the companies Oracle acquired are as under (source – http://www. oracle. com):- 2013 Feb-13Acme PacketNetworking hardware for telecommunications service providers 2012 Dec-12Eloqua Marketing Automation platform for managing sales and marketing leads across an enterprise.Dec-12DataRakerCloud based Analytic platform to transform meter, customer, network and asset Big Data into actionable business intelligence. Nov-12Insta ntisCloud and premises-based PPM – Project Portfolio Management applications. Sep-12SelectMindsCloud-based social talent sourcing and corporate alumni management application Jul-12Xsigo SystemsProvider of network virtualization technology that simplifies cloud infrastructure and operations Jul-12SkireSolutions provider for managing capital projects, facilities and real estate Jul-12InvolverSocial media development platformJun-12Collective IntellectCloud-based social intelligence solutions May-12VitrueSocial Marketing Platform provider Mar-12ClearTrialCloud-based Clinical Trial Operations and Analytics products Feb-12TaleoTalent Management Software 2011 Oct-11RightNow TechnologiesCloud-based CRM Oct-11EndecaE-commerce & Business Intelligence Sep-11GoAHead Service Availability and Management Software Jul-11InQuiraService Knowledge Management Software Jul-11KspliceRebootless Linux kernel updates Jun-11 FatWire Software Web Content and Web Experience Management (WCM and WEM) Soft ware Jun-11Pillar Data Systems Storage systemsApr-11Datanomic Data Quality Software Feb-11Ndevr – Select IP only Environmental Reporting and Business Intelligence 2010 Nov-10 Art Technology GroupEcommerce software vendor May-10 Pre-Paid Software Payment Solutions May-10 Market2LeadApplications May-10 Secerno Data protection hardware and software Apr-10Phase Forward Applications for life sciences companies and healthcare providers Feb-10AmberPoint Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) management Feb-10Convergin Telecom Service BrokerJan-10Sun Microsystems Computer servers, storage, networks, Java, MySQL, software, and services Jan-10Silver Creek SystemsProduct Data Quality Solutions for connecting Enterprise Systems, Customers, Suppliers and Partners. 2009 Oct-09SOPHOI Intellectual property management for Media & Entertainment Industry Sep-09HyperRoll Financials, software and IT services Jun-09Conformia Product Lifecycle Management May-09Virtual Iron Software Server Virtualizati on Management Software Mar-09Relsys International Drug Safety and Risk Management 2008Oct-08Haley (RuleBurst Holdings) Natural Language Business Rules / Policy Automation Oct-08Advanced Visual Technology Retail Space Planning Oct-08Primavera Project Portfolio Management Jun-08Skywire Software Document Management May-08AdminServer Insurance Policy Administration Jan-08BEA Systems Enterprise Software 2007 Dec-07MoniforceReal User Experience Monitoring Sep-07BridgestreamEnterprise Role Management software Jul-07Bharosa, IncOnline Identity Theft and Fraud Detection May-07Agile Software CorporationProduct Lifecycle Management Apr-07Lodestar CorporationUtilities Application SoftwareMar-07Hyperion CorporationEnterprise Performance Management Mar-07Tangosol IncDatagrid Software 2006 Nov-06Stellent Inc. Universal Content Management, Digital Rights Management Nov-06SPL WorldGroupUtility Billing and Customer Service Systems Oct-06SunopsisETL, Data Integration Oct-06MetaSolvOSS service activati on Jun-06DemantraDemand-Driven Planning Solution [email  protected] IP-based Contact Center Solution Apr-06Portal Software Billing and Revenue Management solutions for communications and media industry Feb-06HotSipCommunications infrastructure solutionsFeb-06Sleepycat Software Open-source database software for embedded applications Jan-06360CommerceRetail Industry Solutions Jan-06Siebel SystemsCustomer relationship management 2005 Dec-05Temposoft Workforce Management Applications sam organization Nov-05OctetString Virtual Directory Solutions Nov-05Thor Technologies Enterprise-wide User Provisioning Solutions. Oct-05Innobase Discrete Transactional Open Source Database Technology Sep-05G-LogTransportation Management Solutions Aug-05i-flexBanking Industry Solutions Jul-05Context MediaEnterprise Content IntegrationJul-05ProfitLogicRetail Industry Solutions Jun-05TimesTenReal-time Enterprise Solutions Jun-05TripleHopContext-sensitive Enterprise Search Apr-05RetekRetail Industry Solutio ns Mar-05OblixIdentity Management Solutions Jan-05PeopleSoftEnterprise Software 2004 Jun-04CollaxaBusiness process management May-04 PhaosIdentity management Jan-04SiteWorks Solutions Clinical trials management 2003 Jun-03ReliatyEnterprise data protection Jun-03FileFishEnterprise content management 2002 Jun-02SteltorEnterprise calendaring system Jan-02NetForce Adverse event reporting systemJan-02Indicast Voice portals Jan-02TopLink Object-relation mapping technology 1999 Jun-99Thinking Machines Corporation datamining technology 1995 Aug-95IRI Software OLAP products 1994 Oct-94Rdb (A division of DEC) Relational database The early acquisitions show Oracle focus on growing its databases market but acquisitions of past few years including very surprising $5 Billion acquisition of Sun MicroSystems do not give us good sense of where Oracle’s focus is. The strategic theme in Oracle’s acquisition spree is missing and seems more like reactions of leadership focusing only on â⠂¬Å"growth†.Take a look at spread of Oracle into sectors and even a layman would agree that it is stretching itself far too thin. If people outside of Oracle can’t understand why Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, the confusion is equally evident inside Oracle as well. No one can put a figure on if Oracle acquired Sun for hardware market entry point or MySQL or Sun Solaris OS or was it a combination of all these and then some. Oracle has come out with an integrated ERP product suite – Fusion. The sales teams do not fully comprehend how to package Fusion compared to Oracle 12 version.As such Fusion itself is at least four years too late. In its attempt to create a unified platform for ERP software, it has managed to successfully scare customer who want just a small focused set of modules – like AR and GL or Manufacturing. There was Steve Jobs who made the famous statement that â€Å"†¦we tell customers what they want†¦Ã¢â‚¬ . Larry Ellison can ma ke the same claim – but to be successful at doing that, you have to be a visionary and not be distracted so hopelessly as Ellison currently is. And, customers seem to be last thing that Oracle considers while deciding these moves.For example, many of Sun’s largest former customers were large Wall Street financial institutions, and they were really miffed last year when Oracle wanted to restrict their server and operating system choices to only Sun technologies. They relentlessly pushed back and Oracle had to ultimately give in to their defiance, reaffirming deals that would let companies like HP and Dell offer Sun software on their respective hardware. â€Å"Customers will always gripe about giving too much control to any one company,† said Israel Hernandez, director of software research at Barclays Capital.Larry Ellison runs Oracle likes his personal fiefdom. The Oracle Board of Directors is merely a formality that is maintained to satisfy the Wall Street and S EC. Most decisions are taken unilaterally by Ellison and his leadership team. For example the 2010 hiring of ex-HP CEO, Mark Hurd, as a co-president after Hurd was fired by HP board due to sexual harassment allegations. Analysts viewed the hiring as a positive outcome for Oracle as it looked to expand. However, Mr. Hurd’s arrival was quickly followed by departure of one ofOracle long-timer, Charles Phillips. At one time, Charles was touted as Ellison’s protege and likely successor. Oracle customers are worried about putting all their eggs in one basket. Almost every company that they tend to do business is being bought by Oracle – much to customers’ dislike. And for hosts of Oracle’s Annual Open World program, San Francisco city officials are running into dilemma of saying â€Å"No† to Oracle at some point for hosting the event, simply because it is unlikely that city could survive the demands of an Oracle four times its current size.A look at its portfolio will tell you more about scary reach and disappointing and unfocused spread that Oracle has now – 110 product lines spread across 14 different domains. (source – http://www. oracle. com):- DATABASE DataScaler (October 2010) e-Test (acquired from Empirix) (March 2008) Innobase (October 2005) Moniforce (December 2007) mValent (February 2009) Secerno (May 2010) Sleepycat (February 2006) TimesTen (June 2005) TripleHop (June 2005) MIDDLEWARE AmberPoint (February 2010) BEA (January 2008) Bharosa (July 2007) Bridgestream (September 2007) Captovation (January 2008)ClearApp (September 2008) Context Media (July 2005) Datanomic (April 2011) FatWire (June 2011) HyperRoll (September 2009) GoldenGate (July 2009) Java (April 2009) Oblix (March 2005) OctetString (November 2005) Passlogix (October 2010) Sigma Dynamics (August 2006) Silver Creek Systems (January 2010) Stellent (November 2006) Sunopsis (October 2006) Tacit Software (November 2008) Tangosol (March 2007) T hor Technologies (November 2005) APPLICATIONS AppForge (April 2007) Collective Intellect (June 2012) Eloqua (December 2012) Haley (October 2008) InQuira (July 2011) Interlace Systems (October 2007)Involver (July 2012) LogicalApps (October 2007) Market2Lead (May 2010) Ndevr (February 2011) RightNow (October 2011) SelectMinds (September 2012) Taleo (February 2012) TempoSoft (December 2005) Vitrue (May 2012) PRODUCT LINES Agile (May 2007) ATG (November 2010) Endeca (October 2011) Hyperion (March 2007) PeopleSoft (January 2005) Primavera (October 2008) Siebel (January 2006) [email  protected] (June 2006) IMPLEMENTATION AND INTEGRATION TOOLS Global Knowledge Software (GKS) (July 2008) SERVERS, STORAGE, AND NETWORKING Ksplice (July 2011) Pillar Data Systems (June 2011Sun (April 2009) Xsigo Systems (July 2012) Virtual Iron (May 2009) INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS COMMUNICATIONS AND MEDIA Acme Packet (February 2013) (pending) Convergin (February 2010) eServGlobal's Universal Service Platform (USP) ( May 2010) GoAhead (September 2011) HotSip (February 2006) MetaSolv Software (October 2006) Net4Call (April 2006) Netsure Telecom Limited (September 2007) Portal Software (April 2006) Sophoi (October 2009) ENGINEERING AND CONSTRUCTION Instantis (November 2012) Primavera (October 2008) Skire (July 2012) FINANCIAL SERVICES i-flex (August 2005)HEALTH SCIENCES ClearTrial (March 2012) Phase Forward (April 2010) Relsys (March 2009) INDUSTRIAL MANUFACTURING Agile (May 2007) Conformia Software (June 2009) Demantra (June 2006) G-Log (September 2005) INSURANCE AdminServer (May 2008) Skywire Software (June 2008) RETAIL 360Commerce (January 2006) Advanced Visual Technology (AVT) (October 2008) ProfitLogic (July 2005) Retek (April 2005) UTILITIES DataRaker (December 2012) SPL WorldGroup (November 2006) LODESTAR (April 2007) Failure to Admit Reality It is also felt that Oracle executive management is out of touch with reality.The typical strategy is to first make fun of competitors, then ridicule them and finally scare the wits out of the customers who were even thinking of adopting competitors’ products. If the competition still survives all this and continues to grow then Oracle does one of the two things – either it buys the competition or simply buys the number two in that space. They did this for Sun, HP, NetApp, EMC, VMWare, Siebel, PeopleSoft, Salesforce, Microsoft (for MS SQL Server). Most of the times, customers can see through this and continue their adaptation of new products from customers.Most recent examples are Oracle’s taking potshots for two consecutive years in Oracle Open World 2010 and 2011 at Salesforce. com and then when it couldn’t wean away customers from Salesforce. com or slow down the ramp up, it launched its own versions of cloud offerings in 2012 Open World. Sun MicroSystems â€Å"Millstone† Around the Neck Whatever be the underlying rationale for purchase of Sun MicroSystems, Oracle is now challenged to make th e whole acquisition viable. It now finds itself in the territory of hardware market that its sales team is so ill-equipped to sell.The only option it had was to turn the Sun hardware into Exadata, Exalogic and Exalytic Servers and try to hoodwink the customers into buying this â€Å"supreme† computing machines. Much to its chagrin, not many customers are biting this new set of baits. Dark â€Å"Cloud† Space For a long time – almost three years – Oracle made fun of Salesforce. com, Amazon and Microsoft – specifically for their cloud services. It positioned the Exadata and Exalogic servers as new cloud servers that could provide as much computing power as tens of commodity hosts from these vendors cloud offerings.However, around late 2011-2012, it became very clear to Oracle that Cloud hosting and cloud based multi-tenancy software are the future and it scrambled to buy as many Cloud services based companies as it could – examples are RightNow , Taleo, Virtue – all acquired within months of each other in 2011-12. Oracle needs to realize that just acquisition of a company by and in itself doesn’t position Oracle as a leader in that space – acquisition is just the start – Oracle thereafter needs to retain the talent in that company, invest and grow the company, integrate it seamlessly within Oracle’s other relevant product lines.Unfortunately for Oracle, these are also the areas where it has failed most of the times in the past. Grasping for straws Good news first, Oracle has not yet reached this stage yet – in this stage, very perceptible symptoms are – changing CEOs and executive staff in quick rotation and changing the product directions every so often. However, there is bound to be a moment, not in very distant future, when we will find that eople will become so weary of Oracle products that Ellison will be either dislodged by a hostile board or will leave on his own. He has essentially no succession plan in place except bunch of execs like Thomas Kurian or Mark Hurd who can stake their claim to the crown. Thomas is well respected within the company but lacks charisma and chutzpah of Ellison. Mark may not be as respected but has good experience of cutting costs – like he did at HP. Death KnellIn this stage, a company either slowly vanishes into irrelevance or is acquired or merged into another competitor or goes belly up. For the sake of hundreds of thousands of professionals using, preaching and earning their bread from Oracle Technologies, I just hope Oracle never reaches that stage. Out of hundreds of companies that passed through this stage and vanished into oblivion, only two companies have thus far ever recovered from this stage – Xerox and Apple. Once again, I am sincerely hoping that Oracle never reaches this stage.Will it be able to recover from this downward spiral? Oracle can arrest this dance towards its vanishing into obli vion – question that really begs for an answer is – will it have the honesty to first admit and then stop this march? First of all, Oracle should focus and determine its core strength and then focus on building up on those. There is no prudence demonstrated in draining money on acquisitions and then selling those companies at markdown, or worst, writing off the charge as a loss.It is about time Oracle give up its greed on squeezing more money out of its customer and first create products and value that customers will willingly play obscene amount of money for. References: http://finance. yahoo. com http://www. oracle. com http://www. nytimes. com/2010/09/22/technology/22oracle. html? _r=0 http://www. forbes. com/2001/10/29/1029orcl. html http://www. zdnet. com/oracles-customers-a-bit-baffled-by-fusion-strategy-says-report-7000011143/ http://www. networkworld. com/news/2013/011713-oracle-cloud-265922. html How the Mighty Fall: And why some companies never give in â€⠀œ by Jim Collins,