Oracle is rapidly location-enabling many of its business applications so that users can access, visualize, query and analyze spatial information together with non-spatial information in the same enterprise database, from the same familiar application environment.

In this podcast, learn firsthand how Oracle Utilities is taking advantage of Oracle Application Server MapViewer, Oracle Locator and Oracle Spatial in utility industry applications. In addition, you'll hear how many of the Oracle applications that were acquired from Siebel, JD Edwards and PeopleSoft will use Oracle Spatial Technology. We will be speaking to Peter Turi, Director, Product Management, Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Management, and Jim Steiner, Senior Director, Oracle Server Technology.


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Other resources mentioned in the podcast:

Oracle Spatial

Oracle MapViewer

Oracle Spatial 11g Book

The podcast lasts 12 minutes.

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On the eve of our 5th Location Intelligence Conference I find myself looking around at who else has picked up using the term "location intelligence" to either describe what their product does or what business they think they are in. At a recent conference someone asked me and others on a panel for a definition. Having registered the URL years ago, I begged off on answering. I'd rather not confine the term to anything I or someone else says it is. It's a little like GIS these days...perhaps more buzz than something tangible. As it is, I count may companies adopting the phrase for just that reason. They don't want to be saddled with explaning the term GIS and propose using the phrase because it is more understandable, which was part of the reason I settled on the term in the first place.

However, it's being spread a little thin. Wavemarket, a mobile LBS provider, has adopted the term as has Pitney Bowes MapInfo, one of the original desktop mappers. geoVue, Oracle, DMTI Spatial, and others have all emphasized the use of the term in their own way. I believe it was DMTI that offered the definition in Wikipedia. Mark Smith, CEO/CTO at Ventana Research offers a definition for his BI clients around which they have an established LI practice. So, from LBS to GIS to BI, the usage of LI has been somewhat stretched.

But to me, that's fine. In cultivating the adoption of 'location intelligence' as a more cogent moniker about which hangs some better understanding of location-based applications, that's exactly how I had hoped the conference would evolve. In it's fifth year, LI has certainly grown to provide a venue where an eclectix mix of ideas and technologies can come together.

The one thing I find missing in evaluating whether to move from MS Outlook to apps provided by Google as a complete SaaS model is integration. The Calendar doesn't talk to email very well; adding contacts is clunky, etc. Perhaps the entire model is just not as clean as Outlook. But after watching the demo of Salesforce.com working with Google, I may be more convinced that a switch is coming. Of course, I'm looking at the demo for when maps will pop into the dashboard that you can create showing sales progress, etc. Ok, the demo didn't give maps any attention but someone else has. There have been mashups around for a few years but the recent announcement between the two companies have indicated that the integration is already there. SaaS in a Web 2.0 world is nothing new but the latest solution from Salesforce.com/Google is making an even more convincing argument for shelving client side apps.

Over the past several weeks, Directions Media has produced a number of podcasts related to location intelligence sponsored by Oracle. Each podcast will include either product, industry or data support information for Oracle Spatial. The podcast links and their topics are listed below:

The Oracle Spatial Game Plan - An overview of Oracle's product status, its application strategy and future technology directions with Xavier Lopez and Jim Steiner.
Listen Now (to download, right click on the link at left and choose "save target as")


Putting the Pieces Together - A discussion of how to consolidate all your organization’s spatial information in an enterprise database, how it can be shared among users, and leveraged in business processes throughout the enterprise
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Develop Applications with Oracle Java Tools - Listen to this podcast and learn how R.L. Polk and Company uses Oracle Spatial technology to develop its automotive research applications.
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Oracle Business Intelligence with Spatial and MapViewer Integration - In this podcast learn how Aon Re Global, an Oracle customer and the largest insurance intermediary in the world, uses Oracle Spatial, Oracle Fusion Middleware MapViewer, and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition to perform more accurate risk analysis.
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Using NAVTEQ & DigitalGlobe Data with Oracle Spatial - Get an update on how NAVTEQ’s vector map data and DigitalGlobe’s worldwide image data have been specially formatted for the Oracle Database, and how it can be used to enhance customers' business intelligence and enterprise applications
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Here's the index with all the info.

I followed up with Jake Freivald, VP of Information Builders (IBI) on their announcement that the company was utilizing the Google Maps API to visualize geospatial data (see image at right courtesy of IBI). I wanted to know what led IBI to implement this feature in its WebFOCUS platform. "We needed to do for a variety of reasons," said Freivald. "What we are coding with latest iteration of WebFOCUS is to make it a platform for mashups. All you have to do with WebFOCUS is decide what data you want; what icons you want and what other drill downs you want to go to. It’s not a lengthy development cycle and we want to make good on the promises of Web 2.0."

IBI is not abandoning its relationship with ESRI or its tools, for which it had developed a interface to share and analyze data and pass back results to IBI’s business intelligence suite. In fact, IBI is just trying to deliver a less costly alternative.

"Customers love the idea of maps but don’t want to invest that much in mapping," said Freivald. "So we have a lot of customers who want maps but don’t want to spend a lot on it." Customers will still be able to easily to transfer data to ESRI when client wants to do it for more advanced analysis.