Joaquim P. Menezes

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With the launch of Oracle Database 11g today, many are keen to know more about it's key features and capabilities. Few are as qualified to talk about these as Andy Mendelsohn, senior vice-president, Oracle Server Technologies and Bob Shimp vice-president of Oracle's Global Technology Business Unit. In this interview Mendelsohn and Shimp share their take on the new data challenges faced by businesses today, and how 11g will address these.

The latest release of Oracle's flagship database - Oracle Database 11g - has close to 500 new features. With new data retention and compression technologies, performance and change management capabilities, unique performance tuning features, and much more - this, we are told, is a database to top all others. Excitement is high, but will that translate into widespread adoption. IT World Canada's online editor, Joaquim P. Menezes investigates.

A significant percentage of Canadians who shop online are also avid - and savvy - participants in social networking forums, such as blogs, wikis, community video and picture sites and more, a study sponsored by Visa and Yahoo! Canada reveals.

Days after its launch in the U.S., it seems Apple's iPhone is still securely tethered to the AT&T network. And, so far at least, claims about the "significant progress" of efforts to unlock the device haven't amounted to much.

Robert Scott, vice-president of innovation and architecture at Procter and Gamble, says that with the right business model and personnel - a gargantuan global company can demonstrate as much spark and sizzle as a Silicon Valley start-up - on a very different scale, of course. At the recent CIO Assembly conference held at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., Scott recounted his company's "remarkable success" in creating a culture of innovation anchored on "shared services" and "smart alliances."

"When fate hands you a lemon," wrote Dale Carnegie many years ago, "make lemonade." Replace the word "fate" with "Microsoft" and you'll have a pretty good idea of a key argument the folk at the Free Software Foundation (FSF) are making to encourage adoption of version 3 of the GNU General Public License - to be released on Friday.

Fostering a culture of innovation across a global company with five billion customers raises significant issues of scale and complexity. But Procter & Gamble says it has accomplished this with its new business model anchored on shared services and smart alliances.