ORCL:Accenture Innovation Center for Oracle Launched To Help Clients Generate Added Value from Oracle Solutions

Accenture has opened its Innovation Center for Oracle at the Oracle headquarters in Redwood Shores. The Accenture Innovation Center for Oracle is dedicated to the development of new ideas and innovative solutions based on Oracle's Server Technologies infrastructure and Oracle(r) Applications software. The center will initially focus on the development of leading-edge service-oriented reference architectures and reference applications based on Oracle Fusion Middleware.
"The center is the first of its kind to be located on the Oracle campus and is designed to help accelerate the development, delivery and commercialization of innovative Oracle-based solutions, and promote collaboration between Accenture, Oracle and our clients," said Jim Hayes, managing director of Accenture's global Oracle practice. "Building on the long-standing relationship between Accenture and Oracle, the center is an important step forward in our ongoing efforts to help clients derive maximum value from their Oracle solutions."

The Accenture Innovation Center for Oracle will enable Accenture to capture and distribute market-leading Oracle Applications and Oracle Server Technologies Infrastructure product expertise through collaboration and direct links with Oracle's research & development teams, Accenture's global delivery center network of more than 40 delivery centers, and Accenture Technology Labs throughout the world.

"We're pleased to have Accenture's center located on the Oracle campus. Today's announcement conveys Accenture and Oracle's commitment to providing our joint customers with solutions to take advantage of service-oriented architectures," said Thomas Kurian, senior vice president, Oracle Server Technologies. "With more than 31,000 global customers using Oracle Fusion Middleware as the foundation for their SOA infrastructures, it is critical that we work with Accenture to help ensure that deployments are quick and seamless."

The center will also enable Accenture and Oracle to help clients by:

* Developing and delivering first-to-market, Oracle-based solutions using Accenture processes, methodologies and tools for service-oriented architectures (SOA) and other Oracle technology-based and industry-specific assets

* Demonstrating newly developed Accenture service offerings that leverage software products such as Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Applications and Oracle Industries Solutions

The new Innovations Center, together with the recently opened Accenture Center of Excellence for Oracle, located in Bangalore, India, are expected to enable Accenture and Oracle to develop a portfolio of assets that will lead to the delivery of faster and more cost-effective implementation of Oracle-based solutions anywhere in the world.

"Our collaboration with Oracle is part of Accenture's broader $450 million investment in SOA," said Don Rippert, chief technology officer at Accenture. "Through this initiative, as well as others, we are working to help our clients understand the journey to adopting SOA so that they can ultimately realize its true benefits and improve their performance."

Accenture has already developed an SOA reference architecture -- a set of definitions, frameworks, best practices, decision trees and code to help design and build an SOA - based on Oracle's Fusion Middleware platform. Work is underway at the new Innovation Center to complete the second version of the reference architecture which, when finished, will become the foundation for future joint solution development and joint customer engagements.

Accenture and Oracle have enjoyed a relationship of more than 15 years. Accenture has the largest and fastest-growing Oracle enterprise solutions practice among full-service integrators with more than 23,000 professionals around the world qualified to provide implementation, upgrade and application outsourcing solutions for the entire Oracle product stack.

About Oracle and SOA
Oracle is a leader in the emerging service-oriented architecture market and offers a complete set of service infrastructure components for building, deploying, and managing SOAs. With Oracle Fusion Middleware, services can be created, managed, and orchestrated into composite applications and business processes. With Oracle Fusion Middleware's hot-pluggable components, organizations can easily extend and evolve their architectures instead of replacing existing investments.

About Oracle
Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world's largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, visit our web Site at http://www.oracle.com/.

About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Committed to delivering innovation, Accenture collaborates with its clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. With deep industry and business process expertise, broad global resources and a proven track record, Accenture can mobilize the right people, skills and technologies to help clients improve their performance. With more than 133,000 people in 48 countries, the company generated net revenues of US$15.55 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2005. Its home page is www.accenture.com.