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  • Ray Wang: Why engagement matters in an era of customer experience

    - by Michael Snow
    Why engagement matters in an era of customer experience R "Ray" Wang Principal Analyst & CEO, Constellation Research Mobile enterprise, social business, cloud computing, advanced analytics, and unified communications are converging. Armed with the art of the possible, innovators are seeking to apply disruptive consumer technologies to enterprise class uses — call it the consumerization of IT in the enterprise. The likely results include new methods of furthering relationships, crafting longer term engagement, and creating transformational business models. It's part of a shift from transactional systems to engagement systems. These transactional systems have been around since the 1950s. You know them as ERP, finance and accounting systems, or even payroll. These systems are designed for massive computational scale; users find them rigid and techie. Meanwhile, we've moved to new engagement systems such as Facebook and Twitter in the consumer world. The rich usability and intuitive design reflect how users want to work — and now users are coming to expect the same paradigms and designs in their enterprise world. ~~~ Ray is a prolific contributor to his own blog as well as others. For a sneak peak at Ray's thoughts on engagement, take a look at this quick teaser on Avoiding Social Media Fatigue Through Engagement Or perhaps you might agree with Ray on Dealing With The Real Problem In Social Business Adoption – The People! Check out Ray's post on the Harvard Business Review Blog to get his perspective on "How to Engage Your Customers and Employees." For a daily dose of Ray - follow him on Twitter: @rwang0 But MOST IMPORTANTLY.... Don't miss the opportunity to join leading industry analyst, R "Ray" Wang of Constellation Research in the latest webcast of the Oracle Social Business Thought Leaders Series as he explains how to apply the 9 C's of Engagement for both your customers and employees.

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  • The Social Business Thought Leaders - John Hagel

    - by kellsey.ruppel
    While many European economies are on the brink of a recession between increasing taxation and mounting loss of jobs and bankruptcy filing rates, there's an understandable risk of losing sight of the deeper forces at play. Yet instead of surrendering to uncertainty and trying to survive in the short term, many organizations are feeling the urge to be better prepared to thrive in these complex times by developing a more articulated long term understanding of both the opportunities / challenges ahead. For example: What long-term economic, technological and societal changes are rolling out? Which foundational dynamics will affect our companies' performance, productivity, competition, and innovative potential in the upcoming decades? How will digital infrastructure change our business landscape? What kind of capabilities will be key to compete in a market shaped by growing turbulence, unpredictability and volatility? Breaking out from a strictly cyclical thinking, studies such as the Shift Index by John Hagel, Co-Chairman of the Center for the Edge at Deloitte & Touche (See Measuring the forces of long-term change - The 2009 Shift Index), depict a worrying performance challenge that affected every industry in the entire US economy over the last 45 years. Amidst a more than doubled competitive intensity of the market, and even with an improved labor productivity, the actual performance of US firms has consistently fallen to 25% of what it was in 1965. Most of this reported value is shifting from institutions and organizations to individuals, whether they are customers or young creative talent. To thrive in the digital economy and reverse declining performance trends, companies will have to fundamentally rethink their management approach by moving from knowledge stocks to knowledge flows, from scalable efficiency to scalable learning, from push organizations to pull organizations. Based on the outcomes of the Shift Index and on the book The Power of Pull, the first episode of the Social Business Thought-Leaders features John Hagel to provide strategic insights on how companies will succeed in the 21st century.

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  • Partnering with your Applications – The Oracle AppAdvantage Story

    - by JuergenKress
    So, what is Oracle AppAdvantage? A practical approach to adopting cloud, mobile, social and other trends A guided path to aligning IT more closely with business objectives Maximizing the value of existing investments in applications A layered approach to simplifying IT, building differentiation and bringing innovation All of the above? Enhance the value of your existing applications investment with #Oracle #AppAdvantage Aligning biz and IT expectations on Simplifying IT, building Differentiation and Innovation #AppAdvantage Adopt a pace layered approach to extracting biz value from your apps with #AppAdvantage Bringing #cloud, #social, #mobile to your apps with #Oracle #AppAdvantage Embracing Situational IT In the next IT Leaders Editorial, Rick Beers discusses the necessity of IT disruption and #AppAdvantage. Rick Beers sheds light on the Situational Leadership and the path to success #AppAdvantage. Rick Beers draws parallels with CIO’s strategic thinking and #Oracle #AppAdvantage approach. Do you have this paper in your summer reading list? Aligning biz and IT #AppAdvantage What does Situational leadership have to do with Oracle AppAdvantage? Catch the next piece in Rick Beers’ monthly series of IT Leaders Editorial and find out. #AppAdvantage Middleware Minutes with Howard Beader – August edition In the quarterly column, @hbeader discusses impact of #cloud, #mobile, #fastdata on #middleware Making #cloud, #mobile, #fastdata a part of your IT strategy with #middleware What keeps the #oracle #middleware team busy? Find out in the inaugural post in quarterly update on #middleware Recent #middleware news update along with a preview of things to come from #Oracle, in @hbeader ‘s quarterly column In his inaugural post, Howard Beader, senior director for Oracle Fusion Middleware, discusses the recent industry trends including mobile, cloud, fast data, integration and how these are shaping the IT and business requirements. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Mix Forum Technorati Tags: AppAdvantage,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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  • The Internet of Things & Commerce: Part 2 -- Interview with Brian Celenza, Commerce Innovation Strategist

    - by Katrina Gosek, Director | Commerce Product Strategy-Oracle
    Internet of Things & Commerce Series: Part 2 (of 3) Welcome back to the second installation of my three part series on the Internet of Things & Commerce. A few weeks ago, I wrote “The Next 7,000 Days” about how we’ve become embedded in a digital architecture in the last 7,000 days since the birth of the internet – an architecture that everyday ties the massive expanse of the internet evermore closely with our physical lives. This blog series explores how this new blend of virtual and material will change how we shop and how businesses sell. Now enjoy reading my interview with Brian Celenza, one of the chief strategists in our Oracle Commerce innovation group. He comments on the past, present, and future of the how the growing Internet of Things relates and will relate to the buying and selling of goods on and offline. -------------------------------------------- QUESTION: You probably have one of the coolest jobs on our team, Brian – and frankly, one of the coolest jobs in our industry. As part of the innovation team for Oracle Commerce, you’re regularly working on bold features and groundbreaking commerce-focused experiences for our vision demos. As you look back over the past couple of years, what is the biggest trend (or trends) you’ve seen in digital commerce that started to bring us closer to this idea of what people are calling an “Internet of Things”? Brian: Well as you look back over the last couple of years, the speed at which change in our industry has moved looks like one of those blurred movement photos – you know the ones where the landscape blurs because the observer is moving so quickly your eye focus can’t keep up. But one thing that is absolutely clear is that the biggest catalyst for that speed of change – especially over the last three years – has been mobile. Mobile technology changed everything. Over the last three years the entire thought process of how to sell on (and offline) has shifted because of mobile technology advances. Particularly for eCommerce professionals who have started to move past the notion of “channels” for selling goods to this notion of “Mobile First”… then the Web site. Or more accurately, that everything – smartphones, web, store, tablet – is just one channel or has to act like one singular access point to the same product catalog, information and content. The most innovative eCommerce professionals realized some time ago that it’s not ideal to build an eCommerce Web site and then build everything on top of or off of it. Rather, they want to build an eCommerce API and then integrate it will all other systems. To accomplish this, they are leveraging all the latest mobile technologies or possibilities mobile technology has opened up: 4G and LTE, GPS, bluetooth, touch screens, apps, html5… How has this all started to come together for shopping experiences on and offline? Well to give you a personal example, I remember visiting an Apple store a few years ago and being amazed that I didn’t have to wait in line because a store associate knew everything about me from my ID – right there on the sales floor – and could check me out anywhere. Then just a few months later (when like any good addict) I went back to get the latest and greatest new gadget, I felt like I was stealing it because I could check myself out with my smartphone. I didn’t even need to see a sales associate OR go to a cash register. Amazing. And since then, all sort sorts of companies across all different types of industries – from food service to apparel –  are starting to see mobile payments in the billions of dollars now thanks not only to the convenience factor but to smart loyalty rewards programs as well. These are just some really simple current examples that come to mind. So many different things have happened in the last couple of years, it’s hard to really absorb all of the quickly – because as soon as you do, everything changes again! Just like that blurry speed photo image. For eCommerce, however, this type of new environment underscores the importance of building an eCommerce API – a platform that has services you can tap in to and build on as the landscape changes at a fever pitch. It’s a mobile first perspective. A web service perspective – particularly if you are thinking of how to engage customers across digital and physical spaces. —— QUESTION: Thanks for bringing us into the present – some really great examples you gave there to put things into perspective. So what do you see as the biggest trend right now around the “Internet of Things” – and what’s coming next few years? Brian: Honestly, even sitting where I am in the innovation group – it’s hard to look out even 12 months because, well, I don’t even think we’ve fully caught up with what is possible now. But I can definitely say that in the last 12 months and in the coming 12 months, in the technology and eCommerce world it’s all about iBeacons. iBeacons are awesome tools we have right now to tie together physical and digital shopping experiences. They know exactly where you are as a shopper and can communicate that to businesses. Currently there seem to be two camps of thought around iBeacons. First, many people are thinking of them like an “indoor GPS”, which to be fair they literally are. The use case this first camp envisions for iBeacons is primarily for advertising and marketing. So they use iBeacons to push location-based promotions to customers if they are close to a store or in a store. You may have seen these types of mobile promotions start to pop up occasionally on your smart phone as you pass by a store you’ve bought from in the past. That’s the work of iBeacons. But in my humble opinion, these promotions probably come too early in the customer journey and although they may be well timed and work to “convert” in some cases, I imagine in most they are just eroding customer trust because they are kind of a “one-size-fits-all” solution rather than one that is taking into account what exactly the customer might be looking for in that particular moment. Maybe they just want more information and a promotion is way too soon for that type of customer. The second camp is more in line with where my thinking falls. In this case, businesses take a more sensitive approach with iBeacons to customers’ needs. Instead of throwing out a “one-size-fits-all” to any passer by with iBeacons, the use case is more around looking at the physical proximity of a customer as an opportunity to provide a service: show expert reviews on a product they may be looking at in a particular aisle of a store, offer the opportunity to compare prices (and then offer a promotion), signal an in-store associate if a customer has been in the store for more than 10 minutes in one place. These are all less intrusive more value-driven uses of iBeacons. And they are more about building customer trust through service. To take this example a bit further into the future realm of “Big Data” and “Internet of Things” businesses could actually use the Oracle Commerce Platform and iBeacons to “silently” track customer movement w/in the store to provide higher quality service. And this doesn’t have to be creepy or intrusive. Simply if a customer has been in a particular department or aisle for more than a 5 or 10 minutes, an in-store associate could come over an offer some assistance already knowing customer preferences from their online profile and maybe even seeing the items in a shopping cart they started at home. None of this has to be revealed to the customer, but it certainly could boost the level of service an in-store sales associate could provide. Or, in another futuristic example, stores could use the digital footprint of the physical store transmitted by iBeacons to generate heat maps of the store that could be tracked over time. Imagine how much you could find out about which parts of the store are more busy during certain parts of the day or seasons. This could completely revolutionize how physical merchandising is deployed or where certain high value / new items are placed. And / or this use of iBeacons could also help businesses figure out if customers are getting held up in certain parts of the store during busy days like Black Friday. If long lines are causing customers to bounce from a physical store and leave those holiday gifts behind, maybe having employees with mobile check as an option could remove the cash register bottleneck. But going to back to my original statement, it’s all still very early in the story for iBeacons. The hardware manufacturers are still very new and there is still not one clear standard.  Honestly, it all goes back to building and maintaining an extensible and flexible platform for anywhere engagement. What you’re building today should allow you to rapidly take advantage of whatever unimaginable use cases wait around the corner. ------------------------------------------------------ I hope you enjoyed the brief interview with Brian. It’s really awesome to have such smart and innovation-minded individuals on our Oracle Commerce innovation team. Please join me again in a few weeks for Part 3 of this series where I interview one of the product managers on our team about how the blending of digital and in-store selling in influencing our product development and vision.

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  • UPK Professional Customer Success Story: Medtronic

    - by [email protected]
    In case you missed the live event, be sure to listen to last week's UPK Customer iSeminar featuring Medtronic. This was the first iSeminar in our quarterly series to showcase UPK Professional (UPK and Knowledge Pathways). Donna Miller and Staci Gilbert gave viewers an inside look at samples of Medtronic's content as they shared their experiences, methodology and best practices for use of the solution. Here are some highlights of the call: • Medtronic initially purchased UPK Professional to support a multi-year, global SAP rollout for 9,000 end users located in 24 countries. • As time went on, they expanded their use of UPK Professional to include several of their other enterprise applications: PeopleSoft, Siebel CRM, Hyperion Financial Management, a number of SAP bolt-ons, Documentum, TrackWise, and many others. • In combination with their Saba LMS, UPK Professional has allowed Medtronic to create, deploy, track and certify consistent end user training for critical transactions and processes across their organization worldwide - essential for a company in a heavily regulated industry. • For key pieces of content or certain end user populations, some Medtronic business units localize/translate the global UPK content. Staci demonstrated examples of their SAP content which has been translated into Japanese. • In the live SAP environment, end users rely on UPK's context sensitive in-application performance support. Medtronic has found this to be very helpful post go-live, giving just-in-time support so end users are confident in a new system or when performing tasks they don't often touch (at quarter or year end). UPK also serves as Medtronic's internal Google. • Medtronic has realized savings on many fronts: reduction in support calls due to in-application performance support, elimination of their training clients, and speedier training (1.5 days rather than 5-7 days) of temporary workers by moving from ILT to a blended solution that includes UPK simulations for eLearning. Thanks again to Donna and Staci for an exceptional presentation. They offered so many great examples for anyone who's looking for ways to get more out of UPK or interested in learning about UPK Professional: Knowledge Pathways. - Karen Rihs, Oracle UPK Outbound Product Management

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  • Software Engineering Practices &ndash; Different Projects should have different maturity levels

    - by Dylan Smith
    I’ve had a lot of discussions at the office lately about the drastically different sets of software engineering practices used on our various projects, if what we are doing is appropriate, and what factors should you be considering when determining what practices are most appropriate in a given context. I wanted to write up my thoughts in a little more detail on this subject, so here we go: If you compare any two software projects (specifically comparing their codebases) you’ll often see very different levels of maturity in the software engineering practices employed. By software engineering practices, I’m specifically referring to the quality of the code and the amount of technical debt present in the project. Things such as Test Driven Development, Domain Driven Design, Behavior Driven Development, proper adherence to the SOLID principles, etc. are all practices that you would expect at the mature end of the spectrum. At the other end of the spectrum would be the quick-and-dirty solutions that are done using something like an Access Database, Excel Spreadsheet, or maybe some quick “drag-and-drop coding”. For this blog post I’m going to refer to this as the Software Engineering Maturity Spectrum (SEMS). I believe there is a time and a place for projects at every part of that SEMS. The risks and costs associated with under-engineering solutions have been written about a million times over so I won’t bother going into them again here, but there are also (unnecessary) costs with over-engineering a solution. Sometimes putting multiple layers, and IoC containers, and abstracting out the persistence, etc is complete overkill if a one-time use Access database could solve the problem perfectly well. A lot of software developers I talk to seem to automatically jump to the very right-hand side of this SEMS in everything they do. A common rationalization I hear is that it may seem like a small trivial application today, but these things always grow and stick around for many years, then you’re stuck maintaining a big ball of mud. I think this is a cop-out. Sure you can’t always anticipate how an application will be used or grow over its lifetime (can you ever??), but that doesn’t mean you can’t manage it and evolve the underlying software architecture as necessary (even if that means having to toss the code out and re-write it at some point…maybe even multiple times). My thoughts are that we should be making a conscious decision around the start of each project approximately where on the SEMS we want the project to exist. I believe this decision should be based on 3 factors: 1. Importance - How important to the business is this application? What is the impact if the application were to suddenly stop working? 2. Complexity - How complex is the application functionality? 3. Life-Expectancy - How long is this application expected to be in use? Is this a one-time use application, does it fill a short-term need, or is it more strategic and is expected to be in-use for many years to come? Of course this isn’t an exact science. You can’t say that Project X should be at the 73% mark on the SEMS and expect that to be helpful. My point is not that you need to precisely figure out what point on the SEMS the project should be at then translate that into some prescriptive set of practices and techniques you should be using. Rather my point is that we need to be aware that there is a spectrum, and that not everything is going to be (or should be) at the edges of that spectrum, indeed a large number of projects should probably fall somewhere within the middle; and different projects should adopt a different level of software engineering practices and maturity levels based on the needs of that project. To give an example of this way of thinking from my day job: Every couple of years my company plans and hosts a large event where ~400 of our customers all fly in to one location for a multi-day event with various activities. We have some staff whose job it is to organize the logistics of this event, which includes tracking which flights everybody is booked on, arranging for transportation to/from airports, arranging for hotel rooms, name tags, etc The last time we arranged this event all these various pieces of data were tracked in separate spreadsheets and reconciliation and cross-referencing of all the data was literally done by hand using printed copies of the spreadsheets and several people sitting around a table going down each list row by row. Obviously there is some room for improvement in how we are using software to manage the event’s logistics. The next time this event occurs we plan to provide the event planning staff with a more intelligent tool (either an Excel spreadsheet or probably an Access database) that can track all the information in one location and make sure that the various pieces of data are properly linked together (so for example if a person cancels you only need to delete them from one place, and not a dozen separate lists). This solution would fall at or near the very left end of the SEMS meaning that we will just quickly create something with very little attention paid to using mature software engineering practices. If we examine this project against the 3 criteria I listed above for determining it’s place within the SEMS we can see why: Importance – If this application were to stop working the business doesn’t grind to a halt, revenue doesn’t stop, and in fact our customers wouldn’t even notice since it isn’t a customer facing application. The impact would simply be more work for our event planning staff as they revert back to the previous way of doing things (assuming we don’t have any data loss). Complexity – The use cases for this project are pretty straightforward. It simply needs to manage several lists of data, and link them together appropriately. Precisely the task that access (and/or Excel) can do with minimal custom development required. Life-Expectancy – For this specific project we’re only planning to create something to be used for the one event (we only hold these events every 2 years). If it works well this may change (see below). Let’s assume we hack something out quickly and it works great when we plan the next event. We may decide that we want to make some tweaks to the tool and adopt it for planning all future events of this nature. In that case we should examine where the current application is on the SEMS, and make a conscious decision whether something needs to be done to move it further to the right based on the new objectives and goals for this application. This may mean scrapping the access database and re-writing it as an actual web or windows application. In this case, the life-expectancy changed, but let’s assume the importance and complexity didn’t change all that much. We can still probably get away with not adopting a lot of the so-called “best practices”. For example, we can probably still use some of the RAD tooling available and might have an Autonomous View style design that connects directly to the database and binds to typed datasets (we might even choose to simply leave it as an access database and continue using it; this is a decision that needs to be made on a case-by-case basis). At Anvil Digital we have aspirations to become a primarily product-based company. So let’s say we use this tool to plan a handful of events internally, and everybody loves it. Maybe a couple years down the road we decide we want to package the tool up and sell it as a product to some of our customers. In this case the project objectives/goals change quite drastically. Now the tool becomes a source of revenue, and the impact of it suddenly stopping working is significantly less acceptable. Also as we hold focus groups, and gather feedback from customers and potential customers there’s a pretty good chance the feature-set and complexity will have to grow considerably from when we were using it only internally for planning a small handful of events for one company. In this fictional scenario I would expect the target on the SEMS to jump to the far right. Depending on how we implemented the previous release we may be able to refactor and evolve the existing codebase to introduce a more layered architecture, a robust set of automated tests, introduce a proper ORM and IoC container, etc. More likely in this example the jump along the SEMS would be so large we’d probably end up scrapping the current code and re-writing. Although, if it was a slow phased roll-out to only a handful of customers, where we collected feedback, made some tweaks, and then rolled out to a couple more customers, we may be able to slowly refactor and evolve the code over time rather than tossing it out and starting from scratch. The key point I’m trying to get across is not that you should be throwing out your code and starting from scratch all the time. But rather that you should be aware of when and how the context and objectives around a project changes and periodically re-assess where the project currently falls on the SEMS and whether that needs to be adjusted based on changing needs. Note: There is also the idea of “spectrum decay”. Since our industry is rapidly evolving, what we currently accept as mature software engineering practices (the right end of the SEMS) probably won’t be the same 3 years from now. If you have a project that you were to assess at somewhere around the 80% mark on the SEMS today, but don’t touch the code for 3 years and come back and re-assess its position, it will almost certainly have changed since the right end of the SEMS will have moved farther out (maybe the project is now only around 60% due to decay). Developer Skills Another important aspect to this whole discussion is around the skill sets of your architects and lead developers. When talking about the progression of a developers skills from junior->intermediate->senior->… they generally start by only being able to write code that belongs on the left side of the SEMS and as they gain more knowledge and skill they become capable of working at a higher and higher level along the SEMS. We all realize that the learning never stops, but eventually you’ll get to the point where you can comfortably develop at the right-end of the SEMS (the exact practices and techniques that translates to is constantly changing, but that’s not the point here). A critical skill that I’d love to see more evidence of in our industry is the most senior guys not only being able to work at the right-end of the SEMS, but more importantly be able to consciously work at any point along the SEMS as project needs dictate. An even more valuable skill would be if you could make the conscious decision to move a projects code further right on the SEMS (based on changing needs) and do so in an incremental manner without having to start from scratch. An exercise that I’m planning to go through with all of our projects here at Anvil in the near future is to map out where I believe each project currently falls within this SEMS, where I believe the project *should* be on the SEMS based on the business needs, and for those that don’t match up (i.e. most of them) come up with a plan to improve the situation.

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  • New Year's Resolutions and Keeping in Touch in 2011

    - by Brian Dayton
    The run-up to Oracle OpenWorld 2010 San Francisco--and the launch of Fusion Applications--was a busy time for many of us working on the applications business at Oracle. The great news was that the Oracle Applications general sessions, sessions, demogrounds and other programs were very well attended and well received. Unfortunately, for this blog, the work wasn't done there. Yes, there haven't been many additional blog entries since the previous one, which one industry analyst told us "That's a good post!" That being said, our New Year's Resolution is to blog more frequently about what's been keeping us busy since Oracle OpenWorld San Francisco. A quick summary: - A 4-part webcast series covering major elements of Oracle's Applications strategy - Oracle OpenWorld Brazil - Oracle OpenWorld China - A stellar fiscal Q2 for Oracle and our applications business - Engagement with many Oracle Fusion Applications Early Adopter customers (more on this in the coming year) Objectives for the Coming Year Looking forward at 2011 there are many ways in which we hope to continue making connections with our valued customers and partners, sharing information about where Oracle Applications are headed, and answering questions about how to manage your Oracle Applications roadmap. Things to look for in 2011: - Stay connected with Oracle Applications on a daily basis via our Facebook page. You don't have to be a member of Facebook---but if you are and "like" the page you'll have daily insights and updates delivered to your account http://www.facebook.com/OracleApps - Coming soon, an Oracle Applications strategy update World Tour---a global program that takes key updates and information to cities around the globe - Save the date: On February 3rd, Oracle will be hosting a global, online conference for Oracle Applications customers, partners and interested parties Happy New Year and look for us in 2011.

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  • Big Data for Retail

    - by David Dorf
    Right up there with mobile, social, and cloud is the term "big data," which seems to be popping up lots in the press these days.  Companies like Google, Yahoo, and Facebook have popularized a new class of data technologies meant to solve the problem of processing large amounts of data quickly.  I first mentioned this in a posting back in March 2009.  Put simply, big data implies datasets so large they can't normally be processed using a standard transactional database.  The term "noSQL" is often used in this context as well. Actually, using parallel processing within the Oracle database combined with Exadata can achieve impressive results.  Look for more from Oracle at OpenWorld as hinted by Jean-Pierre Dijcks. McKinsey recently released a report on big data in which retail was specifically mentioned as an industry that can benefit from the new technologies.  I won't rehash that report because my friend Rama already did such a good job in his posting, Impact of "Big Data" on Retail. The presentation below does a pretty good job of framing the problem, although it doesn't really get into the available technologies (e.g. Exadata, Hadoop, Cassandra, etc.) and isn't retail specific. Determine the Right Analytic Database: A Survey of New Data Technologies So when a retailer asks me about big data, here's what I say:  Big data refers to a set of technologies for processing large volumes of structured and unstructured data.  Imagine collecting everything uttered by your customers on Facebook and Twitter and combining it with all the data you can find about the products you sell (e.g. reviews, images, demonstration videos), including competitive data.  Assuming you could process all that data, you could then personalize offers to specific customers based on their tastes, ensure prices are competitive, and implement better local assortments.  It's really not that far off.

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  • Advanced Oracle SOA Suite Oracle Open World 2012 SOA Presentations

    - by JuergenKress
    The list below only includes SOA presentations delivered or moderated by Oracle SOA Product Management. For a complete list of Oracle Open World 2012 presentations, please go here. Oracle SOA Suite, the Most Capable Tool for Every Possible Integration Challenge Using the Right Tools, Techniques, and Technologies for Integration Projects Administration and Management Essentials for Oracle SOA Suite 11g Extreme Performance and Scale Delivered by SOA on Oracle Exalogic Successful Application Integration and SOA Projects: Customer Panel How to Integrate Cloud Applications with Oracle SOA Suite Transforming the Utilities Industry with Oracle Fusion Middleware Cloud and On-Premises Applications Integration, Using Oracle Integration Adapters Delivering High Value B2B Gateways with Oracle SOA Suite 11g Implementing Successful Healthcare Applications with Oracle SOA Suite Migrating to Oracle SOA Suite: A Sun Java CAPS Customer Experience If Mobile Enablement Is on Your Mind, Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle Service Bus Can Help Building Shared Services Infrastructure with Oracle Service Bus: Customer Panel SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit  www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: OOW,OOW presentations,OOW soa ppt,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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  • The Eight Most-Important EBS Techstack Stories in 2010

    - by Steven Chan
    I've never really understood the custom of stuffing a summary of one's family's activities for the year in a Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa card.  It seems a little self-congratulatory and impersonal.  I'd rather my friends kept authentically in touch throughout the year, but perhaps that's just me.Nonetheless, I see the value of a year-end summary in the IT industry.  I spend a lot of time helping our customers understand the latest new developments... and straightening out confusion over changes to the old and familiar.  It can be hard to keep up with the latest news in this space.Here are the eight most-important news items for 2010, with suggested actions for Apps DBAs:Premier Support for EBS 11.5.10 ended on November 30, 2010You need to be on a minimum baseline of 11.5.10 patches to be eligible for Extended Support.  New patches for EBS 11i released during the Extended Support period will be produced only for the minimum baseline configuration.Action: Ensure that your EBS 11i environments meet the minimum baseline requirements. Minimum Baselines are Emerging for EBS 12.0 Extended SupportExtended Support for EBS 12.0 begins on February 1, 2012.  That's only 13 months away.  Minimum baselines haven't been finalized yet, but the 12.0.6 Release Update Pack and the Financials CPC July 2009 are currently slated.  Action: Ensure that your EBS 12.0 environments meet the currently-specified baseline requirements. Sun, Windows, and Linux users should have upgraded to JDK 6 by nowJDK 5's End of Service Life was October 30, 2009 for those three platforms.  If you're running the E-Business Suite on Sun, Windows, or Linux, you should upgrade your EBS servers to JDK 6.  Alternatively, you can purchase Java for Business support (the equivalent of Extended Support for Java). Action: Upgrade your Sun, Windows, or Linux EBS servers to JDK 6. Premier Support for Database 10gR2 ended on July 31, 2010The 10gR2 Database is now in Extended Support.  If you're still on 10gR2, you should start planning your upgrade to a higher certified database version such as 11gR2 11.2.0.2.Action: Upgrade to 10gR2 databases to 11gR2 11.2.0.2. 

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  • Oracle is a Leader again in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for E-commerce

    - by David Dorf
    Although e-commerce represents only 10% of the typical brick-and-mortar retailer’s sales, that percentage continues to climb.  So it’s no wonder that many retailers are considering the purchase of new e-commerce platforms to provide a commerce experience that keeps customers coming back.  And once again, Oracle and IBM lead the pack, identified as leaders in Gartner’s 2013 Magic Quadrant for E-Commerce along with hybris.  Many retailers are realizing the need to support Commerce Anywhere, allowing customers to interact with brands on their own terms.  Gartner reinforces this trend saying, “E-commerce is moving beyond just an online selling channel to integrated platforms delivering a unified customer experience. Traditionally, most organizations have been investing in the online channels with the objective of driving additional sales. However, customers increasingly are expecting a seamless buying experience across all channels, and e-commerce is a critical part of this evolution since it is a point where other channels are integrating to synchronize the customer experience across channels." Oracle saw this trend coming and acquired ATG, FatWire, and Endeca, all leaders in their respective markets, starting back in 2010.  The assets have been combined as Oracle Commerce and represent a comprehensive solution for retailers to sell via the Web while offering the best customer experience possible.  Retailers like JCPenney, American Apparel, and Kohl’s have recently licensed Oracle Commerce as part of their transformations. In the next two years we’ll begin to see more separation between the retailers that have a Commerce Anywhere strategy, and those that continue to flail with separate channels.  Integrating online and offline commerce, along with mobile and social aspects are becoming crucial to success in the industry.

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  • Object oriented design importance

    - by user5507
    I started studying Object Oriented Design and Modelling using the this book by James Rumbaugh. It uses a tool called Object Modeling Technique (OMT). I have certain newbie questions. I searched the net, but couldn't get answers The book is pretty old. Don't know why the school told me to learn this. I know OMT is a predecessor of the Unified Modeling Language (UML). So its a waste? Whether the concepts change very much when we move from OMT to UML? I know OMT has Object, Dynamic and Functional Model. Wikipedia says UML is compatible with OMT and UML is a model too. As per wikipedia the UML models are Static and Dynamic and they are represented by different diagrams like class, object, activity, sequence..... I couldn't find the equivalence of this in OMT. I read that there are many object oriented development methods like OMT, Booch,.... Which one is used by Industry ? Where could I get a comparison of different Object oriented development methods?

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  • Virtualization in Solaris 11 Express

    - by lynn.rohrer(at)oracle.com
    In Oracle Solaris 10 we introduced Oracle Solaris Containers -- lightweight virtual application environments that allow you to consolidate your Oracle Solaris applications onto a single Oracle Solaris server and make the most of your system resources.The majority of our customers are now using Oracle Solaris Containers on their enterprise systems for applications ranging from web servers to Oracle Database installations. We can also make these Containers highly available with Oracle Solaris Cluster, the industry's first virtualization-aware enterprise cluster product. Using Oracle Solaris Cluster you can failover applications in a Container to another Container on a single system or across systems for additional availability.We've added significant features in Oracle Solaris 11 Express to improve and extend the Oracle Solaris Zone model:Integration of Zones with our new Solaris 11 packaging system (aka Image Packaging System) to provide easy software updates within a zoneSupport for Oracle Solaris 10 Zones to run your Solaris 10 applications unaltered on an Oracle Solaris 11 Express systemIntegration with the new Oracle Solaris 11 network stack architecture (more on this in a future blog post)Improved observability with the zonestat management interface and commandsDelegated administration rights for owners of individual non-global zonesTight integration with Oracle Solaris ZFS to allow dedicated datasets per zoneWith ZFS as the default file system we can now provide easy to manage Boot Environments for zonesThis quick summary is just to whet your appetite to learn more about Oracle Solaris 11 Express Zones enhancements. Fortunately we can serve a full meal at the Oracle Solaris 11 Express Technology Spotlight on Virtualization page on the Oracle Technical Network.

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  • Booby Traps and Locked-in Kids: An Interview with a Safecracker

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    While most of our articles focus on security of the digital sort, this interview with a professional safecracker is an interesting look the physical side of securing your goods. As part of their Interviews with People Who Have Interesting or Unusual Jobs series over at McSweeney’s, they interviewed Ken Doyle, a professional a locksmithing and safecracking veteran with 30 years of industry experience. The interview is both entertaining and an interesting read. One of the more unusual aspects of safecracking he highlights: Q: Do you ever look inside? A: I NEVER look. It’s none of my business. Involving yourself in people’s private affairs can lead to being subpoenaed in a lawsuit or criminal trial. Besides, I’d prefer not knowing about a client’s drug stash, personal porn, or belly button lint collection. When I’m done I gather my tools and walk to the truck to write my invoice. Sometimes I’m out of the room before they open it. I don’t want to be nearby if there is a booby trap. Q: Why would there be a booby trap? A: The safe owner intentionally uses trip mechanisms, explosives or tear gas devices to “deter” unauthorized entry into his safe. It’s pretty stupid because I have yet to see any signs warning a would-be culprit about the danger. HTG Explains: Why Linux Doesn’t Need Defragmenting How to Convert News Feeds to Ebooks with Calibre How To Customize Your Wallpaper with Google Image Searches, RSS Feeds, and More

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  • SQL SERVER – Standards Support, Protocol, Data Portability – 3 Important SQL Server Documentations for Downloads

    - by pinaldave
    I have been working with SQL Server for more than 8 years now continuously and I like to read a lot. Some time I read easy things and sometime I read stuff which are not so easy.  Here are few recently released article which I referred and read. They are not easy read but indeed very important read if you are the one who like to read things which are more advanced. SQL Server Standards Support Documentation The SQL Server standards support documentation provides detailed support information for certain standards that are implemented in Microsoft SQL Server. Microsoft SQL Server Protocol Documentation The Microsoft SQL Server protocol documentation provides technical specifications for Microsoft proprietary protocols that are implemented and used in Microsoft SQL Server 2008. Microsoft SQL Server Data Portability Documentation The SQL Server data portability documentation explains various mechanisms by which user-created data in SQL Server can be extracted for use in other software products. These mechanisms include import/export functionality, documented APIs, industry standard formats, or documented data structures/file formats. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • Is Tax Localization a good use for Workflow Foundation?

    - by JustinDoesWork
    Scenario: We have both Winforms and MVC code that is being used to work on a nation wide multi-user platform that does lots of logistics for lots of users. Tax rules change per state and even per city or county. These tax rules make a huge difference for our industry. The other issue is that rules can change based on legislation. The system will have to handle cases where before a date it works one way and then different after that date. This changeover will need to be entered into the system and tested before that date comes. Proposed Solution: Use Workflow Foundation to create a time based system where our users can change and add rules that change the way taxes are calculated. Question: I have not used Workflow Foundation and searching has returned books to look at but not a lot of examples of people using this technology successfully. Is my scenario a good use of Workflow Foundation?(I think so.) If you have any experience with Workflow Foundation, any tips on making this work well?

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  • WebCenter .NET Accelerator - Microsoft SharePoint Data via WSRP

    - by john.brunswick
    Platforms in the enterprise will never be homogeneous. As much as any vendor would enjoy having their single development or application technology be exclusively adopted by customers, too much legacy, time, education, innovation and vertical business needs exist to make using a single platform practical. JAVA and .NET are the two industry application platform heavyweights and more often than not, business users are leveraging various systems in their day to day activities that incorporate applications developed on top of both platforms. BEA Systems acquired Plumtree Software to complete their "liquid" view of data, stressing that regardless of a particular source system heterogeneous data could interoperate at not only through layers that allowed for data aggregation, but also at the "glass" or UI layer. The technical components that allowed the integration at the glass thrive today at Oracle, helping WebCenter to provide a rich composite application framework. Oracle Ensemble and the Oracle .NET Application Accelerator allow WebCenter to consume and interact with the UI layers provided by .NET applications and a series of other technologies. The beauty of the .NET accelerator is that it can consume any .NET application and act as a Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) producer. I recently had a chance to leverage the .NET accelerator to expose a ASP .NET 2.0 (C#) application in the WebCenter UI (pictured above) and wanted to share a few tips to help others get started with similar integrations. I was using two virtual machines for the exercise - one with Windows Server 2003, running SharePoint and the other running WebCenter Spaces 11g. For my sample application data I ended up using SharePoint 2007 lists and calendars (MOSS 2007) to supply results using a .NET API for SharePoint.

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  • Lazy coding is fun

    - by Anthony Trudeau
    Every once in awhile I get the opportunity to write an application that is important enough to do, but not important enough to do the right way -- meaning standards, best practices, good architecture, et al.  I call it lazy coding.  The industry calls it RAD (rapid application development). I started on the conversion tool at the end of last week.  It will convert our legacy data to a completely new system which I'm working on piece by piece.  It will be used in the future, but only the new parts because it'll only be necessary to convert the individual pieces of the data once.  It was the perfect opportunity to just whip something together, but it was still functional unlike a prototype or proof of concept.  Although I would never write an application like this for a customer (internal or external) this methodology (if you can call it that) works great for something like this. I wouldn't be surprised if I get flamed for equating RAD to lazy coding or lacking standards, best practice, or good architecture.  Unfortunately, it fits in the current usage.  Although, it's possible to create a good, maintainable application using the RAD methodology, it's just too ripe for abuse and requires too much discipline for someone let alone a team to do right. Sometimes it's just fun to throw caution to the wind and start slamming code.

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  • For Oracle's JD Edwards Customers--IT's Getting Better All The Time

    - by Oracle Accelerate for Midsize Companies
    By Jim Lein, Programs Management Sr. Principal, Oracle Midsize Programs. The annual JD Edwards Oracle Profit Magazine Special Edition was released this week. Look for the print copy in your mailbox or access the online version here. I entered the software industry when I joined JD Edwards in 1999. The next six years were a wild roller coaster ride for employees, partners, and--most unfortunately--for many of our customers. (Not entirely my fault BTW). In this Special Edition, I immediately gravitated to Aaron Lazenby's interview with Lyle Ekdahl, Group VP and General Manager of Oracle JD Edwards, "Better All The Time".  I met Lyle in 2003 when he joined PeopleSoft to guide JD Edwards' CRM development. He dropped by my cube (it was a double-wide cube, mind you) to explain his strategy. It was an intense first impression. Passionate, competent, personable. From my discussions with partners and customers, it is clear that for Oracle's JD Edwards customers it is getting better all the time. Now I've got that darn Beatle's song stuck in my head...

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  • SQLAuthority News – 2 Whitepapers Announced – AlwaysOn Architecture Guide: Building a High Availability and Disaster Recovery Solution

    - by pinaldave
    Understanding AlwaysOn Architecture is extremely important when building a solution with failover clusters and availability groups. Microsoft has just released two very important white papers related to this subject. Both the white papers are written by top experts in industry and have been reviewed by excellent panel of experts. Every time I talk with various organizations who are adopting the SQL Server 2012 they are always excited with the concept of the new feature AlwaysOn. One of the requests I often here is the related to detailed documentations which can help enterprises to build a robust high availability and disaster recovery solution. I believe following two white paper now satisfies the request. AlwaysOn Architecture Guide: Building a High Availability and Disaster Recovery Solution by Using AlwaysOn Availability Groups SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Groups provides a unified high availability and disaster recovery (HADR) solution. This paper details the key topology requirements of this specific design pattern on important concepts like quorum configuration considerations, steps required to build the environment, and a workflow that shows how to handle a disaster recovery. AlwaysOn Architecture Guide: Building a High Availability and Disaster Recovery Solution by Using Failover Cluster Instances and Availability Groups SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) and AlwaysOn Availability Groups provide a comprehensive high availability and disaster recovery solution. This paper details the key topology requirements of this specific design pattern on important concepts like asymmetric storage considerations, quorum model selection, quorum votes, steps required to build the environment, and a workflow. If you are not going to implement AlwaysOn feature, this two Whitepapers are still a great reference material to review as it will give you complete idea regarding what it takes to implement AlwaysOn architecture and what kind of efforts needed. One should at least bookmark above two white papers for future reference. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL White Papers, T SQL, Technology Tagged: AlwaysOn

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  • Oracle Customer Experience Summit @ OpenWorld

    - by Tony Berk
    Last week in New York, Mark Hurd and Anthony Lye hosted the Experience Revolution announcing Oracle Customer Experience. Now we are announcing the chance for you to learn more about customer experience. The Oracle Customer Experience Summit @ OpenWorld (October 3-5, separate registration required) is a new conference alongside OpenWorld in San Francisco bringing together leading brands and experts to share their insights, success stories and lessons learned to help you and your organization succeed in the Experience Revolution. You will learn about Oracle’s vision, strategy and complete solutions for customer experience and have access to interactive workshops and extensive networking opportunities. In addition to the knowledge packed CRM sessions at OpenWorld (September 30 - October 4), the Customer Experience Summit provides additional opportunities to learn best practices, strategy and tips and tricks to differentiate your brand. Content tracks will focus on Chief Customer Officers, Marketing and Sales, Service and Support, and Commerce and Loyalty.  It is now a full week of tactical and strategic learning and discussions with Oracle and industry experts. Register for OpenWorld and the Customer Experience Summit now! Register for both together to get the package price. Early bird specials for both conferences expire on July 13th!

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  • what is a normal developer to pageview ratio?

    - by Anthony Shull
    I work for an e-commerce site that has lately been shedding its workforce. I was hired ten months ago as a UI Developer. At that time we had three other developers. One was the technical lead who had been with the company for 10 years. The other two were server-side developers who had been there for 10 and 3.5 years respectively. In ten months, the technical lead left for a better position, one developer was laid off, and the other very recently left. So, I am now the only developer on staff. We have one DBA and one network administrator. They are currently looking to hire another developer but are not willing to pay enough to hire a senior person. I consider myself a junior developer with two years of experience. I have argued that we need to hire at least one senior developer and another junior developer if we're going to keep our current site operational (not to mention develop new features)...even if that means laying off staff in other departments. Right now we get 6.5 million pageviews per month, and I feel like 3.2 million pageviews per developer must be incredibly abnormal. My question is then: what is a normal developer to pageview ratio? Are there any industry standards or literature on the subject that I can use to argue for more staff?

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  • IIM Calcutta &ndash; EPBM 14 &ndash; Campus Visit &ndash; Day 4 &ndash; Managing Self, SDCC and Gari

    - by Ram Shankar Yadav
    …I’m becoming more of an addict of writing about my experiences, here in Kolkata! Today we started a bit of late at around 8 AM, did our breakfast and reached in class a bit late at around 9:50 AM, and here goes the surprise…. Today we had two lectures on “Managing Self” and two lectures on “Sustainable Development and Climate Change” (SDCC). Some of us got few self discipline lessons the moment they entered class and asked to “get out” :D So frankly speaking it was a nostalgic moment, which reminded us of Collage ;) We did a FIRO-B test as and got very good tips on managing ourselves and differentiate between “manager” and “leader” After the lunch we had our session on SDCC, in which the prof started by explaining “Credit Crisis”, and moved on to Sustainable Development and few great examples from industry and life~! After the class we went for shopping at Garihat Market, we ate Pani Puri and Moodi :P ..one more surprise…my room got flooded with lot of my new ePBM friends to take the copy of the pictures and we did lot of chit chat around anything and everything :D …so far so good…it’s an amazing experience for me and hopefully for others….who came out of their daily chores and went back to the nostalgic lanes of friendship, learning and most importantly “Happyness” ~~~ Cheers, ram :) EPBM 14 pics : http://epbm14.shutterfly.com/pictures

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  • Webcast Series Part I: The Shifting of Healthcare’s Infrastructure Strategy – A lesson in how we got here

    - by Melissa Centurio Lopes
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Register today for the first part of a three-part webcast series and discover the changing strategy of healthcare capital planning and construction. Learn how Project Portfolio Management solutions are the key to financial discipline, increased operation efficiency and risk mitigation in this changing environment. Register here for the first webcast on Thursday, November 1, 2012 10:00am PT/ 1:00 p.m ET In this engaging and informative Webcast, Garrett Harley, Sr. Industry Strategist, Oracle Primavera and Thomas Koulouris, Director, PricewaterhouseCoopers will explore: Evolution of the healthcare delivery system Drivers & challenges facing the current healthcare infrastructure Importance of communication and integration between Providers and Contractors to their bottom lines View the evite for more details.

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  • How could this diagram for "making a career move into software development" be improved?

    - by Edward Tanguay
    I'm giving a talk in April 2011 on "Developer English" and showing my non-developer audience, mostly English teachers, various diagrams to explain how developers see their industry etc. One of these diagrams is "Hot Technologies", basically, if you want to become a developer, what technologies should you learn to have the highest chance of (1) getting a job (2) making a good salary, and (3) work with the most exciting technology. This is a draft I made just to get some ideas out, basically C#, PHP, Java are where the bulk of the jobs are. Mobile development has a big future. JavaScript is becoming more and more important, and I want to list "minor technologies" such a Python, Ruby on Rails to the side, I assume e.g. that in general, there are a much smaller percentage of jobs in these technologies as in C#, PHP, Java. How could this diagram be improved? UPDATE Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I included most of them in my updated graphic. Does anyone know of more Java technologies that would be appropriate here and could anything be added to the gaming technologies?

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