Assessment Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Assessment - Assignment Example The NAEP has ensured a variety of adjustments in schools since its inception. To increase its scope of application, the Congress has ensured that NAEP gains popularity by providing facilities required in ensuring that it is fully operational. The National Assessment tool is the preferred tool because of its universality since it can be used to compare methods of teaching alongside comparing performance in almost all parts of the world. NAEP as an assessment tool works under the principle of random selection. When it is used, students from various schools are randomly selected within each state to be part of the assessment. The assessments are often conducted in areas such as reading, science, arts and other disciplines in the United States since it is the region which uses the method mostly. NAEP has been widely used in the United States by the Education Department since 1969 (Jay 177). The major purpose of the assessment is to enable education policy makers, parents and the media to analyze students’ progress in various subjects so that deductions can be made to improve the education system or general classroom performance. During the assessment, not all the students are engaged in the process. Only selected students are chosen for participation to act as sample. The sample of students are picked from all public schools in the US and non public schools because the major aim is to enable all students demonstrate in depth knowledge and skills learnt by performing numerous scale scores. The National Assessment of Educational Progress is probably one of the best assessment tools in the world. It reports data results for the entire country hence enables the government compare results for the states against the results of the entire country. The trend of the results which is used nationally to compare academic progress of students between the ages 9 to about 17 are often reported at the state level rather than at school or individual level in order to avoid a situation where schools are competing for grades. One advantage of using this method as an assessment tool is that biasness is reduced because of the fact that random selection is used in assessment. The random selection ensures that no state school whether public or non public gain more advantage over the other. The results are not printed for the schools or individuals. This makes the assessment tool the best method and tool in conducting assessment since it avoids biasness and eliminates rivalry due to the fact that there is no competition involved (Ryan &Shepard 227). During the process of conducting the assessment, it is not just based on short and prolonged responses; rather, other methods used also include multi choice and oral method applications. The results of the assessment tool are compiled by the Education Department in states in the entire nation to compare the results of the students in both public and private schools. Such results are compiled using tables or scalab le vector graphics stored as slides in soft copy or printed in hard copy. Other than trying to compare results for each school within one academic year, it can be used to compare changes in performance of students from one year to the other. The results can be shown or reported using maps. After the release of the results, they can as well be used when doing analytical procedures that will help in improving the

Hinduism Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Hinduism Paper - Essay Example Majority of the traditions that define Hinduism abide by a body of sacred text, the Vedas, though a few exceptions exist. At times, people characterize Hinduism by the idea of reincarnation or rebirth, called the samsara. This is governed by karma, and there exists in this religion the concept of liberation from earthly existence and suffering, a sort of salvation from the sequence of recurrent birth and passing away. Most believe in this concept, with a few exceptions and because of this great diversity that it has, Hinduism is sometimes said Hinduisms. Unlike other major living religions, Hinduism is a religion that does not possess a distinct and specific structure of salvation and each different denomination or faction has their own purposes and goals. However it is clear that it allows total and unconditional liberty of principle, faith and devotion. Hindus are free to interpret the basic fundamentality and themes written in the religious texts and scripts. For this very reason, Hinduism is lacking of the conceptions of renunciation of faith, profanation and blasphemy. (Lane, 2005, p.149) According to a book entitled World Religions written by Jefferey Brodd (2003), although Hinduism generally does not follow a singular structure of belief systems, â€Å"prominent themes in Hindu beliefs include (but are not restricted to), Dharma (ethics/duties), Samsara (the continuing cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth), Karma (action and subsequent reaction), Moksha (liberation from samsara), and the various Yogas (paths or practices).† Moksha is a very important concept in Hinduism. It is the counterpart to Buddhism’s concept of Nirvana and is defined as the ultimate disengagement of the spirit from samsara, or the cycle of life and death, and the transporting to a ‘paradise’ where suffering no longer exists. An act of personal completeness called the atma-jnana is the means by which one can obtain moksha. In Hinduism, there are several Vedanta schools, each of which holds their individual interpretation on the idea of moksha, or freedom, that is coherent with their own distinct values and beliefs. Each one has its own identity from each other. However, all schools continue to be consistent to the general comprehending and veneration of Brahman, and maintain to grasp the truths that are written and inscribed in another of Hindu’s religious and sacred text called the Upanishads. Indeed, Hinduism is an extremely diverse religion, open to many interpretations, beliefs and practices. It is undeniable that its roots in India play a big role in the everyday life and culture of the people who reside there. With many other customs, traditions and viewpoints, Hinduism comprises a comprehensive range of edicts and instructions of day-to-day ethics and conducts that are all based on the Hindu traditions and beliefs such as karma and the dharma, among many other social standards. Their lives are governed by Hindu forma l procedures and ceremonies that include weddings, birth and numerous festivals like the Holi Festival and Indian culture is based on many of Hindu traditions and customs that are evident in Indian households and communities. The vast majority of Hindus engage in religious rituals on a daily basis. (Muesse, 2011, p.216) Fervent traditional

Scripting Types and Uses

Scripting Types and Uses A different type of scripting and their uses are; Maintaining cookies Website uses cookies to allow the user to use the website easily for example cookies will give your preference when visiting that website and gives you recommendations when buying things for example when buying things from the internet it will give you preferences to allow shopping much easier. Checking and validating input. The use of checking and validating input is when for example for searches or to check a certain box has been filed in correctly with the right information. Browser detention Browser detection is when a user types a website in the search bar and it shows recommendation of what you might be searching and it will show different types of searches to save you time and effort. Some old browser does not support JavaScript and can cause problems when inserting code as the browser will not recognise and understand JavaScript. And it will just show a bunch of code into the webpage when loading it. To avoid this note script allows HTML to ignore the comment that the user has inputted so that it will not show on the web page. JavaScript is an object orientated and event driven. Nature of languages Procedural- line by line and it write instruction and the computer just have to read it. Event driven Event driven is when a button is being executed by clicking that button. For example; Object oriented language mean that the codes are broken down into objects or pieces and each objects has its own properties.   Ã‚   Inserting script You can add script element to any HTML document by adding extra code into the page. You can add the JavaScript on the head section, body section as long as you have an opening script and a closing script or else it would not work when opening it in a web browser as it would just show you bunch of codes. And also you would need to have a script type to be to tell the web page that it is a script. Object -Most things in JavaScript is an object e.g Boolean, numbers. An object is a type of data which has its properties own and knows how to trigger it methods. Example var person = {firstName:John, lastName:Doe, age:50, eyeColor:blue}; Example from http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_object_definition.asp Method A method is a collection of statement that are grouped, methods are actions that can be performed on objects. The document write means is to output a message on the screen and it could be value or text. Write() This will write something directly into a html page e.g. Click() this can be a radio button that user can select and click, e.g. Male or female. open() this is to open up new browsers or a new tab. This can be used if the user will need to have to go on a external website e.g. windows.open(www.google.co.uk) Properties properties are building block of objects. There are many types of properties in JavaScript. Here is an example of a property using JavaScript. Example from surfside website. Handling events Events are things that happen to a HTML element. JavaScript can react to many events. Events are things that can happen in a browser. If an event is detected, then multiple thigs can happen in the browser e.g. a function might be triggered e.g. pressing a button. These are some of the main event; Onclick this will activate when a HTML element has been click by a user. Onmouseover this is triggered when the user hovers their mouse on a HTML element. Onload this is triggered when the page has finished loading. Onkeydown this is triggered when the user presses the down arrow on the keyboard. A function is a piece of script that be called when the script is run. For example A function in JavaScript us defined with a function keyword, with a name, and parentheses (). Functions names can contain letters, numbers, and different types of symbols. The code can be executed if the code is inside a curly bracket {}. function name(parameter1, parameter2, parameter3) { code to be executed} Example is taken from http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_functions.asp We use functions because we can reuse the code (define the code once and use it again as many times as the user wants). You can use the same code many times with a different argument. Hiding scripts Scripting language are not support in older browsers or updated browsers. Updated and newer browsers will know whats going in between the script, while older browser will not know. You can also comment to hide the script. Note script HTML: CSS: /* comment */ JavaScript: // You can also disable the script in the browsers settings. What we mean about the interaction and the use of client side scripting for web pages is that the client side uses a browser to connect to a static web pages that uses HTML and CSS that allows them to interact to the website. And that scripting allows the website to have interactivity to a user and make it dynamic. For example, when a client requested information from the website e.g. looking for a holiday. Variable is a container that holds a value or it can be a whole text and data. It can be change anytime var namefield=detailsform.fullname.value; value variable event.returnValue-false; this means that the event which is submitted cannot be executed if box or container has no value. Security issues One of the most common security problems of JavaScript is Cross-Site Scripting also known as XSS. Cross-Site Scripting enables the attackers to change the website to return a malicious script to user going on that website. As JavaScript is an object oriented scripting language, hackers can use tools such as XSS to write their code and harm the users machine and their information stored in the machine. The difficult thing about JavaScript malicious code is that it is hard to detect security breaches that are happening because its usually happening inside the website or inside the users machine without any warnings. https://www.veracode.com/security/javascript-security The HTML element tag we use to implement script is with an opening script and a closing script .If the user wants to run the same script in a different html page, then it should be best to put the JavaScript in one folder so that the user doesnt have to rewrite in all over again. You have to save the script file with a.js extension and you have to refer to it using the src attribute in the script tag. For example; Loops Example of loops example taken from Moodle. Loops is beneficial when you want to run the same code over and over again with different values. The For loop is the tool when you want to create a loop for (statement 1; statement 2; statement 3) { code block to be executed } Statement 1 this is executed before loop even start (code block) Statement 2 defines the conditions for running the room Statement 3 is executed each time the loop has been executed. http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_loop_for.asp A IF statement is a control statement that will allow the JavaScript to make decisions; For example; We use the if conditions if the specified condition is true. We use the else conditions if the same specified condition is false. The dot operator is used to as a separation technique which separate the objects from their methods and properties. Functions are pieces of code that can be written separately or within the ' tags and can be called or executed whenever programed to. Functions are never executed unless they are called. Below is an example of a function being declared within the '' tags and being called. Script 1 Internet Explorer Clicking the image on internet explorer will enlarge the image. Google Chrome In google chrome, if you click the image the image will download to your computer. Mozilla Firefox In Mozilla Firefox, if you click the image the image will download to your computer. Opera In opera , if you click the image the image will download to your computer. Script 2 Internet Explorer __________________________________________________________________________________ Google Chrome __________________________________________________________________________________ Mozilla Firefox _________________________________________________________________________________ Opera The browsers are output are different to each other because each of the way each browser renders web content. The code also runs differently depending on the browser you are using, this is because the string that it is being returned will vary between browsers.

Alias Grace :: essays research papers

Introduction Margret Atwood a long time celebrated author, has most recently published Alias Grace. Atwood has taken a different approach to this novel. Although fictional this story has been based on reality. Grace Marks, the main character is indeed, on of the mid-eighteen hundreds most famous criminals. She was the celebrated villain of the Kinnear-Montgomery murders. This novel has a terrific sense of mystery but also enough interest to engage the reader into its historical drama. Plot Summary Alias Grace, begins in the main character, Grace Marks', sixteenth year of incarceration for the murder of Thomas Kinnear, her past employer. Her supposed accomplice in the murders has already been killed for the murder of Kinnear, although Marks being a woman was handed a lighter sentence of life, although originally sentenced to death also. The death of Nancy Montgomery, Kinnear's housekeeper and mistress, was disregarded as both villain had already been sentenced to death. Grace is around thirty years old, being accused of the crimes when she was only sixteen. Grace is prison where she has been mentally tortured during her rotation from prison to asylum over time. Doctors who wish to "examine" her frequently visit. She has now has a subconscious aversion to these doctors and the world which she knows. She has become accustomed to being silent and unseen. This novel begins with the interest of a young doctor in Grace, Dr. Simon Jordan. He is noted as being from a wealthy family and of good name, but is more interested in studying abroad about sanity and those enclosed in asylums rather than interest at home. He has little experience in dealing on a personal basis with the question of sanity of patients, but is intrigued by this fabulously sensationalized murderess. A group that has continuously tried for the pardon of Grace Marks has recruited him. In hopes of discovery that she has been found mentally sane and furthermore innocent on all counts of murder. Dr. Jordan's main purpose is to help recover the lost memory of the time during the murders. This memory which some to believe was conveniently forgotten helped convict her during the trial; almost as if she had admitted to the killings. During the course of his visits with Grace, Dr. Jordan encourages her to tell of her life before the murders. Grace begins her story with her family in Scotland. Grace had been left with her abusive father and the smaller children after her mother died on the passage to America. A trip taken for necessity rather that need: for her father was in a bit of financial trouble in Scotland. Grace is sent out in Canada as a servant.

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,

Brief Psychoanalysis of A Perfect Day for Bananafish Essay

J. D. Salinger’s A Perfect Day for Bananafish depicts the psychological struggles of Seymour Glass, a veteran of the Second World War. Through Freudian psychoanalysis, the different aspects of the effects of his war-damaged psyche on his ability to perform in society become clear. There are several instances during which it becomes obvious that Seymour’s superego does not function in the same manner as that of the adults around him. It is also evident that his id is the most dominant force for his unusual behavior, but not by the pleasure principle. Rather, it is the childlike innocence that is the facet of his id that is the primary motivation for him to act the way he does. Finally, in the ending, Seymour’s ego comes to the conclusion that it is simply impossible for him to fit into the materialistic society that has come to be. Thus, it can be seen that the war and the society that Seymour returns to after the war play equally important roles in leading up to his suicide. Seymour’s dysfunctional superego becomes evident during Muriel’s conversation with her mother. The mentions of his actions regarding â€Å"The trees. That business with the window. Those horrible things he said to Granny about her plans for passing away. What he did with all those lovely pictures from Bermuda. † all point to various actions that indicate that Seymour’s sense of right and wrong-which is associated with the superego-does not recognize the distinction between things that are socially acceptable and things that are not. Furthermore, it is also implied that this damage to his psychological state stems from the war, which may be a sign of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Of course, PTSD was unheard of during this time period, so Seymour remained untreated for it. This defective superego is then unable to contest the id properly. As a result, Seymour’s id is given partial freedom and so he acts childishly, making things up and pointing things out that are considered foolish. One such example is when he asks Sybil whether â€Å"Whirly Wood, Connecticut is anywhere near Whirly Wood, Connecticut. † In fact, the entirety of his interaction with Sybil is an example of the uncontrolled id. Along with his invented bananafish, this serves to illustrate that his innocence is the primary reason for how he acts. However, this leads to an irreconcilable difference between Seymour and the rest of society, as the rest of society is primarily dictated by their superego. This is best portrayed by the events mentioned in passing during Muriel’s conversation with her mother, and the thing he tells the woman in the elevator: â€Å"I see you’re looking at my feet. Whether or not the woman was actually looking at his feet at all is obviously unimportant; the brief exchange between Seymour and the unnamed woman serves to depict the rift between Seymour and the rest of the world. This rift eventually leads Seymour’s ego, which is tasked with the interaction with external stimuli, to the conclusion that he can no longer coexist with the rest of society. As a result, the only course of action that he can see is that of suicide. Thus, both WWII and the materialism of the society left in WWII’s wake are equally responsible for Seymour’s death. Had the war not damaged Seymour’s psyche to the point where his superego could no longer oppose his id, the whole series of events would not have taken place to begin with. Had society not been converted to follow the ideals of materialism, Seymour would not have found that he was unable to fit into society. But because both did what they did, Seymour’s death became an inherent result of the combination of events that culminated here.

William Butler Yeats Leda And The Swan Essays - Greek Mythology

William Butler Yeats Leda And The Swan Essays - Greek Mythology William Butler Yeats Leda And The Swan William Butler Yeats poem Leda and the Swan is a hauntingly beautiful recreation of the Greek myth in which Zeus takes the form of a swan in order to seduce Leda, who, as a result of this brutality becomes the mother of Helen of Troythe woman who is credited with starting the Trojan War. Yeats choice of employing the sonnet format (sometimes associated with romantic thoughts) in order to retell this story, along with other poetic techniques, allows the poem to go beyond the familiar story which has been told and retold many times. Within the realm of the storyline, this poem captures the moment during which Zeus, disguised as a swan, overwhelms and attacks a helpless young woman. During the first four lines of the poem, the speaker wastes no time in situating the reader as to what is occurring: A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. First of all, swans are not often associated with being birds of violence. One might envision a vulture attacking someone, but swans are thought of as birds of beauty and grace, and symbolize elegance and peacefulness. The action of the swan in the poem actions is the total opposite and one may find it ironic. This could imply the reason that Zeus chose this bird for his disguise: it would be easier to surprise and overwhelm Leda. Starting the poem with this instance of violence as Yeats chooses to, brings the reader immediately in on a moment of supreme horror. Throughout the poem, the compact nature of the lines, all in iambic pentameter, along with their rhyming endings, further escalate the fever pitch of the moment by swiftly moving along the reader. The ringing assonance of end words still and bill, caressed and breast all work to keep the reader riveted as to what is occurring here in the beginning. The next four lines capture the terror that Leda must feel as she is overwhelmed and virtually smothered by this living down comforter. Yet the speaker manages to incorporate a sensual aspect within the violent confines of the description. Amidst the violence of the rape as it is occurring, the speaker manages to convey confusion, and wonder at what it is that is actually overtaking Leda. The speaker wonders How can those terrified vague fingers push/The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? At this point in the poem, it becomes clear with the descriptive language and imagery that this is much more than a random act of violence. Has it occurred to Leda just who is occupying the body of the swan? Is there more here than a rape scene? Since, as part of the myth it is known that Zeus is the one occupying the form of the swan, and since he is king of the gods this could be interpreted as more of a divine intervention.. This is even more telling because Helen of Troy, the woman who launched 1000 ships because of her beautyis the result of this union. The following four lines (lines 9, 10, 11 & 12) go one step further. These lines refer to the overtaking of Troy by the Greeks, during which the gods all respectively played their part and personalities by taking their preferred sides. The speaker could be connecting the conception of Helen, whose eventual abduction from her husband, Menelaus, (brother of Agamemnon) began the Trojan War. In typical Shakespearean Sonnet format, the last two lines of the poem form a resolution of sorts. Here, the speaker is questioning what exactly, if anything, that Leda took from this attack. In a way, this leaves Leda with the upper hand. Did she put on his knowledge with his power/Before the indifferent beak could let her drop? This statement questions what Leda might have gained from the attack. As a woman unable to fend off the overpowering nature of this attack, Leda had no say in the matter of this brutal rape. Yet the speaker seems to be questioning whether or not Leda left this scene a changed womanperhaps even empowered? Again, one

NE Colonies vs. Chesapeake essays

NE Colonies vs. Chesapeake essays During the late 16th century to the 17th century, Europe colonized the New World (present day United States). England was especially one of the European countries who decided to settle in the eastern coast of North America. England sent numerous groups over to America, which settled in two main areas. The two main areas that England settled in were the Chesapeake and New England areas. Although similar in a few ways, the New England and Chesapeake colonies became distinct in separate ways due to the type of people who settled the regions and the way the land was settled. These values changed the two colonies in three main aspects; population, economical, and religious. The Chesapeake region included Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. In about 1607 the first English colony was settled in America. The colony was called Jamestown, and was located along the James River. It was only inhabited by about 100 settlers. Of those settlers, almost all came looking to get rich quickly. Lead by domineering Capitan John Smith, only a few of them survived the harsh winter. Luckily, the Powhatan Indians taught the settlers about corn and tobacco growing. Without the Indians help the English may have never found their staple-crops. The New England area included the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Countless Puritan Separatists set up here because they wanted to complete separation from Catholicism (that Henry VIII started the separation with the Church of England) and convert to Calvinism. Therefore, their motives were religious, unlike the economical ones of the Chesapeake region. The Puritans did not invest in staple crops like the Chesapeake area, instead the focused their time on different crafts (like carpentry and printing). By 1700 the New England population was almost all English and white. It was almost all one race because New England was getting a reputation th...

An Overview Of Teaser Advertising

An Overview Of Teaser Advertising Zoon, V.I.B, ‘On ne peut l’arreter’; these ad shouts for one’s attention but there is no brand name. As you pass by, the hoardings yell out to you – they look extremely familiar but yet they reveal nothing except the promise of more to come. Sometimes they work in a tizzy while sometimes they ask a response out of you. It is suspense with a purpose to tease. These are Teaser advertising. In Mauritius, this style of advertising – which tend to advertise for a new product while keeping the target audience interest arouse each day and at the same time creating a sort of buzz around the ad-the teaser, has become a craze lately. The Zoon Teaser advertising proved to be successful in teasing people. Nevertheless some people consider Teaser advertising to be ‘Much Ado about Nothing’ (quoting the word of Shakespeare). But, why is there so much fantasy about communicating and advertising a product? Today, advertising is considered by many to be the most important factor in the success of the company as most organizations -small and large- that rely on marketing to create customer interest, are engaged in consistent use of advertising to help meet marketing objectives. An organization can have the best idea, product or service, but without effectively delivering their messages to its target market, these ideas, products and services can go unnoticed. An effective creative campaign in the form of a teaser can set a company apart from the competition and allows it to give to its potential customers an image of what makes the brand different from the competition which has for goal to be top of the mind of these busy consumers. This means that the name of the business or the brand is the first thing that pops into their head, when looking for a product in the respective category. Furthermore, given information asymmetry that prevails in the market, advertising is a communication tool that cannot be missed to signal poten tial clients and Teaser advertising with its ability to create buzz and word of mouth is for sure a successful method to spread news about a subject. But even if advertising including Teaser plays a crucial role in positioning the product in the mind of customers, does this type of advertising push people to buy the advertised product as such? Therefore does this type of advertising always work? Does it create this sort of ‘buzz’ that it wants to cause? Does it create this sort of ‘buzz’ that it wants to cause? Does it has an impact on people and how do they react to it? Does it act as a source of motivation for customers to purchase? To know more about this interesting aspect of advertising and to explore this specific area of advertising, a study has been conducted towards this perspective by considering the recent teaser ads in Mauritius. This study will allow discovering and evaluating this particular technique of advertising and explore the surrounding galaxy of such tool of advertising.

Analysis of Codes of Fashion and Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Analysis of Codes of Fashion and Culture - Essay Example The essay "Analysis of Codes of Fashion and Culture" concerns the Alan Pietersen and fashion. Alan Pietersen has a small family – a mother, a father, an elder sister and a younger brother. He is still searching for his ideal soul mate. For him, wife would be someone who can stand up with him in adversarial times and be his confidant. She will be the one who would be the epitome of love and commitment. Alan believes that within the next 3 years he will be a married man. Because of this, he has started saving for the future to make sure that he can raise a family afterwards. Alan knows what he is doing. The only hurdle in his path is the busy work routine that he has to bear almost on a daily basis. Otherwise his search for future wife continues unabated. He is considered as a very fashionable person in his circle. His choice of clothes is extravagant since he belongs to an affluent family. He opines that clothes make a man and thus he sticks to this principle no matter how diff icult it is for him to choose clothes on a daily basis. Alan perceives that it is not always branded clothes that give satisfaction. In fact at times clothes worn can also be from unbranded and generic makers yet the quality is such that it becomes wearable. One must understand that Alan’s tastes are highly developed and he gives priority to fabric and the overall quality as well as the look that comes with it. In this department, he is never left behind and feels pride in it. Alan is also actively involved within sports. He likes to pull on his best tracks and tee shirt to enjoy a 5 kilometer walk. He believes in being fit at all times. Laziness is something that is unknown to him. At times, he goes out on the shore for horse riding. This gives him immense satisfaction as the sea shore makes him feel out of this world. Alan enjoys chatting with friends and general people who are present on the sea line. He often does horse racing which is a unique aspect in its own right. Ye t Alan’s hobbies are much interesting and one cannot deny the same fact without a doubt. He also watches extreme sports on television and once went to Italy to be a part of the Formula 1 grand prix. As far as his party nature is concerned, Alan Pietersen is always going out with friends and colleagues from work. He goes out to watch movies with his family and friends on every weekend. He enjoys romantic movies when he is with his friends yet wishes to see action and comedies when he is with his family members. Also he likes to sing along with friends and often holds a karaoke session at his home. Many of his friends pour in and then they enjoy a party time. He is known to arrange parties and get involved with all of his friends, near or far. He wants each one of them to enjoy with him and for this reason, he is always eager and willing to throw a party. Alan Pietersen believes in holidays and sightseeing around the globe. In other words, he is a globe-trotter. He once went to the Caribbean islands just to watch the sunsets. He loves sunsets and believes he is a romantic at heart. The yellow twilight amazes him endlessly. This is the reason why he adores the sea and just cannot live without it on any given day. Alan finds time out from his busy schedule to book a vacation – an act which is appreciated given his tough timelines and meetings set with the clients (Huszczo 2010). He

Client Letter-acc568 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Client Letter-acc568 - Assignment Example Therefore, the amount of total tax paid for international transactions of corporations depends on the manner by which deductions and incomes are sourced in the countries where the transactions are taking place. However, I will try to break down the U.S source rules for incomes and deductions. As you know, the U.S government takes these matters seriously and I have every intention of addressing all your issues expertly (Yonah, 2007). According to Dykes, with regards to taxation of source income and deductions, the U.S government adopts a taxation methodology known as the worldwide approach. As indicated by the name, the approach involves taxing the income of the globalized corporation regardless of the source of income, whether the source of the income is foreign based or locally based in the U.S. Under this methodology, your company will face the tax burden that locally based companies are subject to (Dykes, 2011). Therefore, your company will have to allocate its global capital on economic factors rather than tax considerations. In retrospect, your company will promote global efficiency in connection to capital allocation. Unfortunately, the advice your friend gave you is misinformed, but do not despair because there are ways to reduce the amount of tax that your company is going to be liable to the IRS. As per your request, there are a few ways that your company can mitigate tax impact form the U.S with regards to income sourced from foreign nations One such method is keeping active income from foreign sources in offshore locations up to the time when your company wants to repatriate the income back to the U.S. Income arising from your foreign based branch/operations is only going to be taxed until it is repatriated via dividend distributions in your U.S based head offices. This is known as deferral tax. In addition, the U.S allows companies such as yours, a tax credit for

Effects of Domestic Violence on Children Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Effects of Domestic Violence on Children - Essay Example In Australia, 75,000 to 640,000 children get exposure to domestic violence. An Australian study showed that up to 40% of chronically violent teenagers have exposure to extreme domestic violence. These statistics become of great concern when viewed globally. Under these circumstances, children grow up in a very violent environment where they witness the physical abuse that their parents inflict on each other. Furthermore, they hear the fighting noises and threats from their parents. They observe the results of the violent acts such as bloodshed, torn clothing, bruises, tears as well as broken items. This paper seeks to show the effects of domestic violence on children. Psychological effects of domestic violence Children who get exposed to such acts of violence normally develop unnecessary fear and anxiety. They are always waiting for the next violence. They fear that any slight argument may lead to violence. As such, they do not feel safe in the home since they do not know what will t rigger the next violence. They also feel powerless and worthless since they wish they could help, but they are not able to do so. It is this feeling of worthlessness that works against their self esteem. These children feel obliged to safeguard the family secrets. They, therefore, restrain themselves from exposing such secrets to outsiders (Zeck, 1993). For this reason, they look cool and composed from outside even when they are going through the toughest psychological torment. They do not seek help from out of fear of revealing the family secrets. Moreover, such children feel vulnerable and isolated. In some instances, they take the blame for the violence since they think that they are the cause. They grow up without the primary needs of a child such as attention, approval and affection. In such cases, mothers are normally busy trying to keep themselves safe and survive in a violent environment. They, therefore, forget their maternal role to the children. Fathers, on the other hand , struggle to seek control of everyone and forget their paternal role in the upbringing of their children. The children feel psychologically and physically abandoned. Emotional response to domestic violence in children Children may exhibit varied emotional responses to the domestic violence that they continually witness. Such response may include shame, fear, sleep disturbance, guilt, anger, depression among others. Moreover, such a child may also be affected physically by headache, stomachache, loss of concentration and bedwetting. Physical injuries may also come as a result of the struggle in an attempt to intervene during the violence (Gioia & Sims, 1983). Children who experience domestic violence also exhibit a number of behavioral changes in response to the violence. Such change in behavior includes anxiety to pleasing, throwing tantrums as well as withdrawal. This, in effect, affects their school attendance and performance. The children may also exhibit delay in growth and dev elopment. This includes developmental delays such as speech and cognitive skills. The children may also assume violence as a means of self expression and defense. They display increased force and aggression towards their peers. This makes their social lives harder since they are not able to socialize with people. Another adverse effect of domestic violence on children is compensation. In many cases, the children take care of their parents injured in domestic violence as well as their younger siblings. This way, they take up adult roles that are far above their ability. Consequently, there is a delay in the child’s emotional and physical development (Daly, Speedy &Jackson, 2004). Long term Effects of Domestic

Human resources trends Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Human resources trends - Case Study Example Labor costs might not be the high overhead variable affecting overall costs it was 30 years ago, but it still a cost reducing solution managers choose to utilize when they feel pressures from upper management and shareholders to lower costs. Outsourcing of employees is not the evil predicament many think it is. It is simply a solution that provides flexibility and allows costing reduction in different compensation areas. Outsourcing of a firm's workforce can occur in various ways. A company can choose to hire employees through job agencies in order to acquire a staff that is legally not theirs. Under this type of work arrangement the employee belongs to the job agency, but performs work and it is supervised by the manager of a firm. Once integrated into the company's system in reality the job agency employee and the directly recruited employee is treated equally and there is not way to differentiate them within a work setting. This alternative is chosen to reduce fringe benefits comp ensation costs and to have flexibility of not being forced to retain an employee after the typical short probation period expires. An outsourcing arrangement occurs when an enterprises hires a consultant to perform work in any type of project within the organization. A third way and the reason the typical American worker feels outsourcing is evil to outsource work that used to be performed in-house to third world countries to save on operational costs. The fact of the matter is that this shift was necessary and most of the time the type of work being outsource are functions which are perform at a fraction of the cost oversees. For example a Chinese worker earns approximately 95% less per hour than a person working in the United States or Europe (Ceglowski & Mawr, 2005). By reducing costs and outsourcing this type of work a company is able to hire more employees to perform other duties. The world environment of developed countries has shifted from manual work to a knowledge economy. There is not turning back and people in developed nation must educated and train themselves to compete in this new economy. Human r esources must adapt and to the change by understanding the different contractual requirements of the various employees working directly and indirectly for a company. Another emerging trend in the business environment of the 21st century is online recruiting. The internet has become a part of the everyday life of humans. There are over 1.1 billion online users worldwide (Plunckett Research, 2007). Since there so many people online spending multiple hours daily in the internet, a great way to find and attract talented professionals is to find them at this time. Online recruiting is great because it provides access to a large pool of potential candidates, but it has many other benefits for human resource professionals. Online recruiting allows HR to find potential employees in places there would have never been able to find them in the past. It allows firms to recruit international players with ease. This must be done because there is shortage of talented professionals in a lot of technical fields such as accounting, information systems, scientists, nursing among many others. The HR field is adapting to the reality of marketplace talent pool shortage and in the future it is projected that the gap between demand and supply for talent will only increase.