Oracle Corp has turned its attention to the year 2000 problem with an initiative designed to both help companies address the issue and attract new customers for the software giant. The company has announced two offerings, one targeted at mid-market companies – which represent a new market opportunity for Oracle – and one for Fortune 1000 customers. The first, called Oracle FastForward Financials Y2K, is intended as a fixed-price package for mid-market clients, with less than $100m in revenue per annum, who have yet to evaluate their Y2K exposure. The offering is billed as a complete Y2K-compliant financial accounting system that can be up and running in 60 days. The package includes the Oracle Financials 11 suite for up to 25 users, which is comprised of general ledger, payables, assets, purchasing and receivables. Also included are consulting and implementation services from either Oracle or one of its partners, five days of on-site training, and one year of round-the-clock support. The whole bundle will go for for $300,000 and will be available from September 15 through December 31. Hewlett-Packard Co has become the first hardware partner for the initiative and the applications will be offered pre-loaded on HP boxes for interested customers. Oracle, which has recently been making a push to lift flagging sales of its applications (CI No 3,437; 3,450), realizes the importance of the Y2K efforts in reaching an untapped market. It also hopes to generate revenue from Fortune 1000 customers by offering the Oracle Compliance evaluation package. Targeted at companies that have already begun Y2K remediation work but have fallen behind, the Compliance offering amounts to two days of free evaluation assistance to determine how fast the client could migrate to Oracle Financials and present a clear implementation proposal and project plan. The same kind of evaluation will be available in the area of Human Resources starting in October, Oracle said.
