Oracle Announces Migration Plan for Oil and Gas Industry; Oracle/Upstream Initiative, Based on POSC Standard and Business Alliance with UniSQL, Cuts IT Costs, Accelerates Migration, Improves Decision Support

Business Wire, Nov 16, 1994

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 16, 1994--Oracle Corp. today announced a major initiative to provide its oil and gas industry customers with significant new decision-support capabilities expected to save the industry hundreds of millions of dollars in IT spending over the next decade. Called Oracle/Upstream, the initiative is designed to support oil and gas companies migrating to computing standards developed by the Petrotechnical Open Software Corporation (POSC), a standards consortium that works with vendors to integrate exploration and production data.

Underpinning the Oracle/Upstream initiative is a business alliance between Oracle and Austin, Tex.-based UniSQL, Inc., the leading object-relational database vendor and the foremost provider of POSC-compliant database products.

"The alliance between Oracle and UniSQL is the single most important commercial development around POSC standards to date," said POSC president William Bartz. "Oracle's proven and widely accepted DBMS service offerings and UniSQL's next generation DBMS technology are already serving our community well."

Oracle is a major software supplier to the oil and gas information technology (IT) segment with more than 70 percent of the exploration and production (E&P) database market.

"Oracle/Upstream will support POSC standards to bridge the gap between relational and object-oriented technology in a seamless manner," said Doug Benson, Manager, Oracle/Upstream. "This initiative will help oil and gas companies to extend the accessibility and usefulness of their exploration and production data, regardless of where it resides."

For instance, with Oracle/Upstream, the oil and gas industry can migrate from legacy systems incrementally, while retaining data access across all platforms. This will result in tremendous cost savings and an increase in productivity.

Oracle will implement Oracle/Upstream in three phases. Phase one will deliver immediately to Oracle customers DAEF support, POSC's standard for data access and exchange. DAEF support is provided by incorporating UniSQL's object-relational technology, the UniSQL/M (tm) Multidatabase System and UniSQL E&P Data Access Layer, into the Oracle7 database.

In Phase two, Oracle will deliver support for POSC's relational projection specifications. Phase three will include full POSC Epicentre support by combining UniSQL's E&P Data Access Layer with powerful object-relational features based on the SQL3 standards that will be available in the next major release of the Oracle7 server product.

An international standards organization, POSC is funded by more than 80 leading companies including Oracle, UniSQL, Chevron, BP, Elf Aquitaine, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Mobil, Schlumberger, Texaco, Shell, Landmark Graphics and PI.

UniSQL, Inc. is headquartered in Austin, Tex. and was founded in 1990 by Dr. Won Kim, the father of the object-relational data model. In 1992, the Petrotechnical Open Software Corporation selected UniSQL to provide database technology for the POSC standardization effort. UniSQL has more than 400 customers worldwide, many that are in the oil and gas industry and other firms, many in IT, including AT&T, Digital Equipment Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, Hughes Aircraft, Motorola, NTT, Samsung Engineering, and the US Air Force. With worldwide revenue of more than $7 million in 1993, UniSQL expects to garner more than $15 million in 1994.

Oracle Corp., a $2 billion company with headquarters in Redwood Shores, Calif., is the world's leading supplier of information management software. Oracle develops and markets Oracle Media Server and the Oracle7 family of software products for database management; Cooperative Development Environment (CDE), a complete set of tools for enterprise-wide, client/server application development; and Oracle Cooperative Applications, packaged client/server solutions for accounting, manufacturing, distribution, human resources and project control. Oracle software runs on personal digital assistants, PCs, workstations, minicomputers, mainframes and massively parallel computers. The company offers its products, along with related consulting, education and support services in more than 90 countries around the world.

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Note to Editors: Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. Oracle7, Oracle Media Server, Oracle Cooperative Applications, Cooperative Development Environment and Oracle/Upstream are trademarks of Oracle Corporation. All other product or company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

CONTACT: Oracle Corp.

             Peter Lisker, 415/506-4663
             UniSQL, Inc.
             Deborah DeCoux, 512/343-7297 x128