IBM helps Oracle customers move to IBM Software

IBM today announced new migration resources to help Oracle software customers move up to IBM. The new resources include no-charge technology and financial assessments, skills training courses, and proof of concepts to support clients ready to convert their Oracle investments to the latest in IBM software.

IBM also announced today that its lending arm, IBM Global Financing is offering zero percent financing to help Oracle customers speed up their move to new IBM software. Today's news reinforces IBM's commitment to provide customers with greater choice, flexibility, and support for new and existing IT investments.

At a time when businesses are looking for stability and technology innovation from IT vendors, more customers are moving to IBM software to drive growth opportunities, generate new revenue streams and reduce costs.

In 2010, more than 1,000 Oracle Database clients chose DB2 instead, and more than 400 Oracle WebLogic clients chose WebSphere.

New migration resources

To show Oracle customers how simple it can be to make the switch, IBM is providing access to new migration resources including:

A no-charge, detailed financial analysis that shows cost savings clients can achieve by switching from Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic to IBM DB2 and WebSphere software.

A no-charge customized technical evaluation and conversion plan to show clients how fast and easy it can be to move up from Oracle to IBM software.

More than 100 online and in-person skills training courses to add certified DB2 skills to Oracle Database developer and database administrator teams, and WebSphere expertise to Oracle software teams.

A proof of concept where IBM works with customers to perform a side-by-side cost/performance comparison between Oracle and IBM software at an IBM Software Lab or client site.

Zero percent financing

Today's news comes at a time when Chief Financial Officers are placing more pressure on IT decision makers to shift the economics away from traditional IT spending to growth investments that deliver a competitive advantage. To help Oracle clients lower their IT spending and save on upfront costs, IBM Global Financing is offering zero percent financing for credit qualified clients ready to make the switch to IBM Software.

"We can help make the move to IBM Software extremely affordable with zero percent financing," said Marcelo Lema, General Manager of Client Financing for IBM Global Financing. "By taking the cost of the IBM Software and dividing by 12, clients can readily determine their monthly payment, making it easy and cost effective to migrate to the industry leader in enterprise software."

Financing includes

Fast approvals on zero percent financing for 12 months to better manage cash flow.

No interest for 12 months and flexible payment options and terms including competitive 24 and 36-month rates with options that let clients match payments to anticipated cash flow.

No hardware purchase required.

Customers Choose IBM Instead of Oracle

Guangdong Rural Credit Cooperatives, the largest rural credit bank in China, has selected IBM technology to build an enterprise-wide banking system to support its long term business strategies and growth. The new IT infrastructure built on DB2 database software and Power Systems will consolidate the data and integrate the business processes of all 99 member cooperatives. IBM was selected as the preferred partner over Oracle and HP, responsible for providing the core technology for the IT infrastructure and integrating the 23 disparate systems previously installed in member cooperatives.

The London branch of Deutsche Postbank AG is using a new IBM Smart Analytics System to help improve the quality and accuracy of its business reporting for risk monitoring, portfolio and collateral analysis. Prior to implementing the IBM analytics system, reporting for the bank was time consuming and involved multiple staff to manually collect data from disparate sources. Now, using IBM technology, the bank has a single view of business information and can make decisions based on up to date information. IBM's Smart Analytics was chosen over offerings from Oracle and other vendors because it offered a fully integrated solution based on IBM's workload optimized systems and industry leading IBM analytics and middleware.

Gazprom Neft, one of Russia’s leading oil companies, is using IBM DB2 database software to power its accounting system across its oil product delivery enterprises. As a result, the company expects to reduce operational risks and boost the flow of business data through its accounting application by 40 times,  enabling users to approve accounting documents twice as fast. As the company grew, its previous database software could not keep up with the number of users, causing interruptions, delays and downtime during peak periods of use. The company turned to IBM Business Partner ALP Group for help, and evaluated database software from Oracle and other vendors. Gazprom Neft chose IBM DB2 based on its ability to manage massive amounts of information without interruptions or delays and deliver higher value for the cost than competing database software.

The company also cites ease of use, low maintenance, simple migration and quick skills transfer in choosing DB2.

"Clients are looking to IBM Software as an attractive alternative to forced migrations, uncertain product roadmaps, waning levels of support and rising licensing costs," said Bernie Spang, Director of Strategy, IBM Software.

"More importantly, clients find that making the switch to IBM Software helps them achieve their business goals faster and more economically."