E-Business
Oracle Announces New Innovations in Cloud Platform for Digital Business
Thomas Kurian, executive vice president of Product Development at Oracle on Tuesday at Oracle OpenWorld 2014, outlined new innovations in Oracle Fusion Middleware.
With these enhancements, customers and partners can leverage the world’s leading cloud platform to power innovation and drive a digital business advantage throughout their organizations.
New features run the gambit of the Oracle Fusion Middleware portfolio, including new social, mobile, security, integration, and collaboration technologies.
Kurian highlighted major updates across the entire Oracle Fusion Middleware stack, including new platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and on-premises cloud offerings as well as mobile, security, content management, and data management and integration capabilities.
With these innovations, customers and partners can implement new digital business models and reduce costs by leveraging elastic private and public cloud architectures.
In addition to on-stage demos of the new offerings, Kurian highlighted the momentous customer adoption of Oracle Fusion Middleware.
Kurian was joined on stage by Steve Holland, CTO/CDO of 7-Eleven, who shared his company’s Oracle Fusion Middleware success story.
Cloud: Oracle’s public and private cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service(PaaS) offerings provide a complete, integrated, best-in-class and standards-based platform to lower integration costs, provide self-service capabilities to drive productivity, and deliver seamless workload portability between on-premises and cloud-based applications.
Further enabling customers and partners to leverage the power of the cloud, Oracle announced six new Oracle Cloud services—Oracle Big Data Cloud Service, Oracle Mobile Cloud Service, Oracle Integration Cloud Service, Oracle Process Cloud Service, Oracle Node Cloud Service, and Oracle Java SE Cloud Service.
These new services join the following Oracle Cloud platform services from the Oracle Fusion Middleware portfolio: Oracle Java Cloud Service, Oracle Messaging Cloud Service, Oracle Developer Cloud Service, Oracle Documents Cloud Service, and Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud Service.
Oracle mobile platform: Oracle Mobile Application Framework supports rapid mobile application development across multiple devices, and Oracle Mobile Security Suite provides mobile security for BYOD and shared devices, bringing together identity and access management.
To simplify secure mobile application development, Oracle deepened the integration between the two offerings, making it easier for developers to create rich mobile user experiences without compromising security.
The addition of Oracle Mobile Cloud Service also simplifies access to enterprise mobile services in the cloud, and the new Oracle Mobile Application Framework Composer allows users to accelerate and simplify the development of mobile applications by offering a visual and declarative way of delivering mobile applications.
Service integration: With the new Oracle Integration Cloud Service, Oracle Cloud Adapters, and Oracle Cloud Adapter Software Development Kit (SDK), organizations can simplify the integration of on-premises systems with customized and packaged cloud applications.
Customers can also support multichannel delivery of applications and services across mobile, Web, B2B, and cloud applications through new API management capabilities, REST, and JSON adapters.
Oracle provides complete API lifecycle management, including definition, creation, publishing, security, monitoring, and management of APIs and seamlessly integrates with private, public, and hybrid cloud solutions.
Business process management (BPM): The recently released Oracle Business Process Management Suite 12c is a comprehensive BPM platform that delivers business-driven process design and advanced process analytics.
The new Oracle Process Cloud Service supports process innovation and optimization through process monitoring and analytics; process automation capabilities including workflow, events, and rules; and mobile forms and workspace capabilities.
Data integration and business analytics: Recent data integration and business analytics offerings from Oracle provide a unified platform to speed analysis to insights and data movement across relational databases, operational systems, data warehouses, and Hadoop clusters.
Oracle Analytics Cloud is a comprehensive portfolio of analytics offerings built for the cloud, deployed in the cloud, and enabling data analysis for cloud, on-premises, traditional, and big data sources.
A new version of Oracle Enterprise Metadata Management covers the full breadth of metadata management and data governance needs in an organization, including data lifecycle management and harvest, and integrates third-party metadata, data governance, stewardship, and standardization.
Content and collaboration: Additional innovations enable collaboration in the context of business applications and integrate content management, collaboration, and process management into an agile platform for any department.
The new Oracle Documents Cloud Service provides document sharing securely across devices and with others using secure workspaces.
Oracle Social Network Cloud Service provides an enterprise social platform to facilitate collaboration within and across organizations.
Identity management: New identity management capabilities unify access management, identity management, and governance in a unified identity platform across on-premises systems and cloud for desktop, Web, and mobile applications.
The offering also enables interoperability across heterogeneous cloud services with modern security standards and protocols.
Oracle Cloud Application Foundation: Oracle Cloud Application Foundation, including Oracle WebLogic Server 12c Release 1 (12.1.3) and Oracle Coherence 12c Release 1 (12.1.3), aligns with the release of Oracle Java Cloud Service.
This is a significant release of Oracle’s core Java server infrastructure; in addition to major capabilities expanded for modern application development, it brings to fruition a key value proposition that enables Oracle customers to run their standards-based Java workloads in a private cloud or on-premises, on conventional hardware, or optimized for engineered infrastructure with Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud and Oracle SuperCluster systems—all without change in the Oracle Cloud.
No other modern Java application infrastructure can provide this, Oracle said.
“As a very large multi-location retailer that runs 24x7x365, we demanded a better and safer way to connect with our external guests and deliver new innovations to market place faster and easier. With our Oracle Fusion Middleware technologies we are now able to provision new environments in less than a day. This includes the complete Oracle SOA Suite on Oracle Exalogic, with Oracle Enterprise Manager managing the Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Exalogic, and our Oracle Exadata databases,” said Steve Holland, CTO and CDO, 7-Eleven, Inc.
“With the data explosion, globalization, and the rise of social and mobile technologies, our customers are facing more challenges than ever before,” said Thomas Kurian, executive vice president, product development, Oracle. “Oracle is committed to delivering the technologies needed to help our customers turn those challenges into opportunities and to creating a modern, secure cloud infrastructure that can simplify IT, deliver a digital business advantage, and make it easier for organizations to deliver better customer experiences.”
Kaspersky’s new online tool has been specially developed for industrial organisations to assess the potential costs associated with insufficient operational technology (OT) security.
By offering detailed financial forecasts, the calculator empowers senior management to make well-informed decisions regarding security investments.
Industrial organisations increasingly depend on interconnected systems, elevating cybersecurity to a critical factor in business resilience and profitability.
According to VDC Research, over 60% of industrial companies last year reported that cybersecurity breaches had led to significant costs. Despite this, a persistent disconnect remains between security teams and executive leadership as security professionals focus on minimising risk, while executives must balance cybersecurity concerns with broader business objectives. This misalignment often results in competing priorities and underfunded security initiatives.
To bridge this gap, Kaspersky has launched the OT Cybersecurity Savings Calculator, an innovative online tool designed specifically for industrial organisations to assess the potential costs of inadequate operational technology (OT) security¹.
The primary aim of this tool is to translate cyber risks into tangible financial metrics and support strategic discussions around priorities and budget allocation. By entering details such as their sector, sub-sector, region, company size, breach history, and existing cybersecurity measures, organisations can estimate their potential cost savings and receive customised, actionable recommendations.
The calculator benchmarks performance against industry peers and highlights the company’s position within the current threat landscape.
“We believe this calculator is a powerful resource for transforming complex cyber risk data into straightforward financial insights. It enables OT leaders, security professionals, and executive teams to develop clear, data-driven business cases and recognise the value of cybersecurity investments. With actionable guidance, it promotes a comprehensive approach to resource management and strengthens overall organisational resilience,” comments Andrey Strelkov, Head of Industrial Cybersecurity Product line at Kaspersky.
National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) has said Nigerian software developers have reached significant milestones with locally made applications generating over one million Dollar in sales across domestic and regional markets.
Dr Obiageli Amadiobi, director-general of NOTAP, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Thursday in Abuja.
Amadiobi said the development signified the growing strength of Nigeria’s digital innovation ecosystem and how local innovation powers digital growth.
She said it was also a direct outcome of targeted support initiatives led by NOTAP.
She added that the initiative helped to build capacity, protect intellectual property, and connect developers to market opportunities.
According to the NOTAP boss, the journey from concept to impact started with understanding and securing intellectual property (IP) rights, a step many local innovators missed.
“Whether it’s a literary work, a laboratory invention, or a creative digital product, the process of bringing an idea to life demands immense time, skill, and dedication.
“An innovator might wake up with a solution to a pressing problem; spend months testing and refining it and achieve remarkable results; so it is their fundamental right to patent that creation and claim ownership.
“Without this protection, someone else could easily replicate their work; patent it in their name; and legally control what was built with Nigerian brainpower,” she said.
Amadiobi said that the challenge was compounded by widespread digital piracy and counterfeiting, which hit the ICT sector hardest.
“From copied software applications to replicated content on social platforms like TikTok, unauthorised duplication has become a major barrier to growth.
“We see talented young creators develop unique digital content or tools, only to watch others rebrand and profit from their work within weeks,” she said.
The DG noted that most popular online personalities with distinctive styles often don’t realise they could protect their original contributions through IP registration.
She said that to address these gaps and unlock the value of Nigerian innovation, NOTAP implemented a multi-pronged strategy,- a cornerstone initiative – which is the Local Vendor Policy.
“The Local Vendor Policy mandates that foreign technology firms entering Nigeria partner with domestic counterparts,’’ she said.
Amadiobi said that among the performing apps are solutions addressing critical local challenges such as a mobile health platform that now serves 750,000 users across six states.
“There is also the agricultural marketplace connecting smallholder farmers to buyers; and an educational tool that has been adopted by 200 schools to improve learning outcomes,” she said.
She added that the apps were developed by teams that gained skills and resources through NOTAP’s Local Vendor Policy.
According to her, the policy requires foreign technology firms operating in Nigeria to allocate a portion of their technical service fees to local partners.
“Three years ago, many of these developers were only providing support services to foreign companies.
“But today, they are building their own products that compete globally. 60 per cent of last year’s sales came from other African countries, showing our developers can lead on the continent,” she said.
The D-G explained that the one million dollar figure represented sales from over 50 locally developed apps, with individual developers earning between 5,000 dollars and 80,000 dollars from their products.
“Looking ahead, NOTAP aims to double these sales figures by 2027, with plans to expand support to developers focusing on fintech, renewable energy management, and climate adaptation tools.
“These are the sectors identified as high-growth opportunities for Nigerian innovation,’’ Amadiobi said
Gold prices smashed through $5,100 per ounce on Monday, January 26, surging to a historic peak of $5,110.50 as investors rushed into the safe-haven asset amid escalating geopolitical tensions and U.S. policy volatility.
Gold
Spot gold climbed 2.2% to $5,089.78 by 0656 GMT, while U.S. February futures rose similarly to $5,086.30. The metal, up 64% in 2025—its strongest annual gain since 1979—has now advanced over 18% year-to-date, fueled by safe-haven buying, anticipated U.S. rate cuts, China’s 14th consecutive month of central bank purchases in December, and massive ETF inflows.
Analysts point to a crisis of confidence in U.S. assets, sparked by President Trump’s erratic threats last week. He retreated from tariffs on European allies to pressure Greenland seizure, then vowed 100% tariffs on Canada over a potential China trade deal and 200% on French wines to push President Emmanuel Macron toward a “Board of Peace” initiative.
“This Trump administration has caused a permanent rupture in global norms, driving everyone to gold as the sole refuge,” said Kyle Rodda, senior market analyst at Capital.com.
A weakening dollar—hit by a rising yen and pre-Fed meeting caution—further boosted gold’s appeal for non-dollar holders, with markets eyeing possible yen intervention.
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