2/10 15:06 Oracle Powers the E-Commerce Holiday Season <ORCL.O>
Oracle Powers the E-Commerce Holiday Season
Oracle(R) Technology Helps Sites Prosper During Holiday Buying Frenzy
REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., Dec. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Serving millions of
customers spending billions of dollars, leading electronic commerce Web sites
are powered by Oracle's leading Internet platform. Holiday shoppers this year
have an alternative to long lines, hostile crowds and full parking lots with
e-commerce built on Oracle technology. These companies, such as CDnow, Lands'
End, Virtual Vineyards, 1-800-Flowers, and CyberCash, Inc. are using Oracle's
technology to ensure this seasons' early online shopping.
According to Collaborative Research, a leading e-commerce market analysis
firm, e-commerce companies are seeing unprecedented consumer Web traffic with
100 to 500 percent increases this holiday season over last year. "This is
clearly the merriest Internet Christmas ever, and Oracle(R) databases are
fueling the action," said Peter Christy, principal at Collaborative Research,
based in Los Altos, Calif. "Our research over the last six months proves that
Oracle is the platform provider of choice for e-business sites, powering ten
of the ten top revenue sites."
CyberCash, Inc., one of the pioneering companies in electronic commerce
and leading provider of secure, convenient electronic payment technologies and
services, has seen a dramatic increase in buying and selling on the Internet
in recent years. The company, which processes millions of Internet payment
transactions each month, recently switched its database management system to
Oracle.
"We have seen more than a 400 percent rise in our payment transaction
volume on the Internet from December 1997 to November 1998," said Jim Condon,
chief operating officer, Cybercash, Inc. "Oracle is playing a vital role in
the management of payment data and will continue to have a large impact on
e-commerce in the future."
CDnow, the Internet's number one music store, is running Oracle on a Unix
system for all of its database needs. The database handles transactions and
catalogs, and also serves up personalized information to CDnow customers. A
second system was recently added by CDnow to support business intelligence
functions.
"We migrated to Oracle because our business requires a platform that is
both reliable and scaleable," said Michael Krupit, vice president of
technology and creative services, CDnow, Inc. "Oracle's technology is key in
allowing customers to access our Web site 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
which is especially crucial to our business as an Internet retailer during the
holidays."
1-800-Flowers, the world's largest florist, is using the Oracle database
to distribute orders received over the Internet to partner florists throughout
the United States. 1-800-Flowers has been working with Oracle for about two
years developing Web-based applications and thin client solutions.
"It's our biggest online holiday season yet," said Ken Young, director of
communications, 1-800-Flowers. "We expected huge growth and that's exactly
what we got. Oracle's technology is making it quicker and easier for us to
move the increasing number of orders over the Web anytime and to any florist
online."
Virtual Vineyards, the Internet's leading wine merchant, launched a new
version of its Web site in the beginning of October using an Oracle database.
According to Robert Olson, chief operating officer, Virtual Vineyards, "We
have already exceeded our busiest day last year and we still have about three
weeks to go until Christmas. During the holiday season in particular, it's
essential that our database delivers superior functionality and performance
which is why our e-commerce site is powered by an Oracle database."
Lands' End, a pioneer in the online retail industry, uses the Oracle
database to store all Web site content, personalized information and to power
the shopping basket. Lands' End launched its online store in July 1995 as
another service for customers.
"Customer satisfaction is our top priority, especially during the holiday
retail season when 40 percent of all business takes place," said Willie Doyle,
Internet manager of marketing and strategic development, Lands' End. "Keeping
the customer happy means we need database technology that is proven and known
for its quality. We chose Oracle to power our efforts during this very
exciting time."
"Nearly 70 percent of the world's leading e-commerce sites rely on the
Oracle database to transact their business with online shoppers. This
translates to close to $2 billion that will rely on the Oracle database for
the essential transaction," said Mark Jarvis, senior vice president of
WorldWide Marketing. "Oracle's unparalleled scalability, performance and
ability to handle vast amounts of data means that there is no line online."
To address the needs of the explosive electronic commerce market, Oracle
offers a wide range of products, partners and services. Offerings currently
shipping or announced include: Oracle 8i(TM), Oracle Application Server,
Oracle Payment Server, Oracle Internet Commerce Server, Oracle Internet Bill &
Pay, Oracle Web Customers, Oracle Web Suppliers, and Oracle Strategic
Procurement. Oracle also offers consulting, education and support services for
customers building electronic commerce solutions.
Oracle Corporation is the world's leading supplier of software for
information management, and the world's second largest software company. With
annual revenues of more than $7.5 billion, the company offers its database,
application server, tools and application products, along with related
consulting, education and support services, in more than 140 countries around
the world.
For more information about Oracle, please call 650-506-7000. Oracle's
World Wide Web address is (URL) oracle.com.
Trademarks
Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and Oracle 8i is a
trademark or registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. All other products or
company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only, and may be
trademarks of their respective owners.
SOURCE Oracle Corp.
-0- 12/10/98
/CONTACT: Elizabeth Orgel of Oracle Corp., 650-506-2921, or
eorgel@us.oracle.com; or Nikki Houck of Applied Communications,
415-365-0222, ext. 261, or nhouck@appliedeom.com., for Oracle/
/Web site: oracle.com
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