Showing posts with label Oracle-Stack. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oracle-Stack. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 01, 2020

Standardized Data Model

 We’ve come across an opportunity in terms of implementing the Preliminary Specification in oil and gas. The opportunity is presented to us through the work that Oracle has done with their products, services and offerings. Moving to the cloud has enabled them to bring about enhancements to their offerings, but most importantly it’s the changes that we’ve seen to the Oracle Database. We’ll get into more detail as we proceed however my research has determined that what is attainable and desirable is that we standardize the data within the business model’s and markets of the Preliminary Specification into a data model. The objective being to standardize all the elements of the administrative and accounting processes and management of the greater People, Ideas & Objects community and the greater oil and gas economy onto Oracle’s Database offering. In order to achieve this otherwise unattainable objective, an industry would need to be undertaking a comprehensive, industry wide “rip and replace” development and implementation of their ERP systems. An industry that has been determined to have comprehensively failed and one that has no plans or vision for its future or what to do about the current crisis it finds itself in. Granted our use of the Oracle Database in this manner is at the forefront in terms of technological demands, however I see no issue with the maturity of their technologies undertaking these tasks. I do see unnecessary complexity and confusion being introduced through non-standard data elements being included within the Preliminary Specification due to prior preferences, convenience and time constraints. Convenience and time constraints for the people that are imposing the constraints not for the implementation of the Preliminary Specification. I see my role in the development of the Preliminary Specification as a need to ensure that its development and implementation is successful. I believe that the North American oil and gas industry is unable to resolve its issues without the timely solution of People, Ideas & Objects and our user communities Preliminary Specification. What are the alternatives? The more time that is spent developing the solution the many more hundreds of billions of dollars that are being lost each year in the greater energy economy. This should be evident to everyone at this point. I would ask therefore, what would the data elements of an ERP system be in the year 2030? When and how would that standardization of the data have been established? Is the incidental cost of standardized data offset by People, Ideas & Objects value proposition?

I have spoken many times of the superiority of the Oracle Database technologies. Their development over the past decade has been breathtaking to me in terms of the performance and all other attributes of the product. Interestingly the competitive markets response to their superiority has been to break down database services into unique disparate database offerings. The most obvious of this is Amazon’s offerings of relational databases that include Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS and Amazon Redshift. Each with a distinct purpose and use. These are the premier database products of Amazon’s eleven databases offered. Oracle uses just one database for all purposes. Therefore no matter what the data, the type of performance that is needed, or the structure of the data, Oracle handles it within the same database. Which presents us with this unforeseen opportunity to standardize the data model for the decentralized production model, overall business model, which includes the three market models of the Preliminary Specification and application user groups. I see this as an opportunity that will enhance the quality of our offering, reduce the need for standardization in the future, reduce the time required to develop and implement the solution and increase the usability and understandability of the applications, and therefore bring the Preliminary Specification to market quicker and with greater efficiency than otherwise would be available. 

The comprehensive scope and scale of the Oracle database in the oil and gas industry once the Preliminary Specification is implemented is comprehensive. The more that we make the data standard the more secure, reliable and capable it will be able to meet our performance expectations. We are using a micro-services architecture to implement the data processing and process management from the expected 3,000 service providers. The application itself will run much of the industry on Oracle ERP Cloud through the People, Ideas & Objects applications. Some producers will use the proprietary cloud offering that Oracle provides which moves Oracle's Cloud physically inside their shop. And then there will be a variety of People, Ideas & Objects applications that are used within the oil and gas producers themselves in order to understand and operate their businesses and operations. This can all be done far easier with the standardized data being managed within the Oracle Database as opposed to accessing it from here and there in various formats that are not incompatible, but introduce complexity and risk to our development and implementation and to what we are seeking to achieve. That being our $25.7 to $45.7 trillion value proposition over the next 25 years. 

It’s important to note here that what I'm talking about is the data model, not the database. The database requirements in this post can all be handled by Oracle's Cloud Autonomous Database offerings. The fact that each service provider will possibly be operating their own Oracle Database, a shard or through shared tenancy is unknown at this time. The same would apply to each of the producers, however having access to the database through shared tenancy would more than likely be the method used there. The use of one tool, the Oracle Database across the entire People, Ideas & Objects application domain, using a standardized data model provides real value for all concerned and a step closer to everyone realizing our value proposition.

I want to reiterate what my personal plans are for the development and implementation of the Preliminary Specification. I have stated here many times that these developments are derivative of the Intellectual Property that I’ve developed over the past number of decades. It’s unknown how much longer it will take before these developments begin however we can all see that the industry is accelerating the steepness of its downward trajectory. The key for me is to watch the actions of OPEC+ as they have attempted for the past 34 years to deal with the North American producer in what I feel is a reasonable way. A way in which the North American producers' best interests reside. North American producers fighting everyone has not done anything for them and now their business is more or less finished. And as we’ve noted in June and July the only thing left to do would be to litigate the losses that have been created over these past decades and secure some of the benefits of the enhanced officers and directors insurance. 

As the budget for the Preliminary Specification denotes there is a big payday for myself personally once we’re funded. However, I’ve also stated I would sell People, Ideas & Objects to the industry upon successful completion of the development and implementation. What I have referred to as my second big payday. Included in that would have been the operating company and all of the Intellectual Property associated with these developments. I’m now changing that as I feel it does not reflect the necessary situation that the user community will need to be placed in once the industry is in the position of owning both of these assets. Therefore, upon reflection and discussion with user community members, I’ll be granting 51% of the Intellectual Property to our user community and selling 49% to the producer purchasers in the sale contract. It is in that way the future of the user community is not in question and will be within their own control. Something that I feel more comfortable with and assured that the direction of the software will be the appropriate direction for the needs of the greater oil and gas economy. Please note this has also been changed in the user community vision. 

The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations, everywhere and always. Setting the foundation for profitable North American energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects have published a white paper “Profitable, North American Energy Independence -- Through the Commercialization of Shale.” that captures the vision of the Preliminary Specification and our actions. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz, anyone can contact me at 713-965-6720 in Houston or 587-735-2302 in Calgary, or email me here

Tuesday, February 03, 2015

Time, Time, Ticking

And that is what I did on my Christmas vacation, Mrs Herman. All joking aside I was busy doing a review of the project from stem to stern in terms of what could be done to improve the time and speed of our delivery. As you could see I was not too concerned about our cost. We can always justify our cost if our value proposition is being met. The existing business model of the bureaucracy provides us with a baseline for our value proposition. Cost isn't the issue, it will be the time that we take to deliver our product to the market. If the bureaucracy. Scratch that. When the bureaucracy fails there will need to be an alternative in the marketplace as quickly as possible. We will need to be there before (ideally) anyone realizes there has been a wholesale failure. As it stands today that is the opportunity we currently have in hand.

In terms of making the People, Ideas & Objects organization faster and lighter, 2015’s version seems remarkably nimble and flexible. The decisions that I announced to you of the cloud computing infrastructure for the development environment and deployment to the industry may not seem that significant to you at this time. From my point of view they are significant. I was able to cross off many boxes within our organization that don’t have to be filled now. A number of them were very senior positions. Our costs in terms of time, effort and the most important commodity energy. Are saved for our primary concern, our user community. We can keep our focus more clearly on our target without the distraction of tedious physical constraints of hardware issues.

And when we go to deploy our application to the producers through our service providers. Both of those communities will experience higher levels of hardware performance as a result of Oracles significant investment in the cloud. Something that we would never have been able to match. And something that we are able to attain by simply flipping a switch. Again without the significant deployment of capital, people, physical effort and energy to setup a facility that we might have ended up failing at in the end. The decision to go to the cloud in both the development environment and our deployment were decisions that I had to consciously make. I had always personally had the vision of the physical machinery within our own domain of control and never questioned it. The speed and lightness that this decision has made on our delivery could make the difference between our ultimate success or failure and may be responsible for reducing up to a full year in terms of our delivery time.

The other major decision that was announced. I made many decisions that I did not announce, some where the impact is too minimal or of little consequence to you. The other decision was to ignore the bureaucracy. As I stated to the investors and users the impact on them is significant. The impact on People, Ideas & Objects is sizable in terms of the time that will be required for us to deliver our product into the marketplace. This too may take a full year off our delivery time. But more importantly, as I stated, it may be responsible for removing 10,000 man years of frustration and heartache from the user community in having to deal with the compromises and contradictions of dealing with the bureaucrats. What could be more valuable?

Accelerating our speed to market will be a pressure that we all will begin to feel soon. It should be something that all members of the user community should ignore and disregard. It is beyond what can be dealt with in your day to day efforts. What is important is the quality of your efforts in making sure that the oil and gas producers attain the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. I’ll take care of the time of delivery issues and how we can make sure our efforts are more efficient. Its decisions like these that can save years, frustrations and heartache that are far more effective than what you can do to “speed up” your work. You can only affect quality. And by feeling the pressure to deliver sooner you’re going to affect your quality negatively. So don't concern yourself with speed and be assured that whatever can be done about the time to delivery is being done on your behalf.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative and profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Budgetary Changes

One of the things that I did during the time that I was off was I took a sharp pencil to the proposed organizational makeup of People, Ideas & Objects. To see if there was any way that we could make the organization perform better in the future to meet the needs of the user community and the oil and gas industry. What a difference. The question that I asked myself is if we were such big believers in cloud computing why were we not implementing these technologies within our own organization at every turn. To date we have implemented them and have benefited greatly from them. One look at our budget however and you can see that we took the mindset that was very typical of the 20th century bureaucrat. We had allocated $200 million to build our own cloud computing facility to host the People, Ideas & Objects application when it was complete. The question was, was this the appropriate direction?

This questioning also involved our software development environment. Many services are springing up that provide the horsepower necessary to host a software development environment that would meet the needs of a development environment that People, Ideas & Objects requires. What we would need is an excessive amount of computing power for those times in which we would build elements of the application. Oracle is now one of these firms offering these software development hosting services. This removes a significant amount of capital from our development budget but it also reduces our organizational overhead in many ways. We don't have to concern ourselves with the minutiae of keeping servers up and running and backing up everything as many times as possible. These services will be provided to us by using Oracle services. Providing us with lower costs, easier administration but most importantly the speed of our development team will be enhanced and our focus sharpened.

Offering our application in a cloud computing configuration to the dynamic, innovative and profitable oil and gas producer was always the consideration. Under the decentralized production model, when we move the administrative and accounting resources to the service providers, why would we leave the IT staff at the oil and gas producer? We wouldn’t. The point is instead of providing that service ourselves by buying Oracle hardware and running it ourselves, we will be purchasing Oracle cloud computing services to run our application on their servers and deliver our applications in that manner. The oil and gas producers won't know the difference. Other than the fact that Oracle will have sizably larger facilities and therefore much higher performance than what we would have been able to provide. We will save the $200 million in capital that we allocated to build the facility. Reduce our overhead and organizational complexity by the costs of maintaining that facility. And most importantly again pick up a factor of speed in which we are able to deliver our product to the marketplace, and sharpen our focus. We are not currently hardware experts. We were going to have to become hardware experts. Now we have Oracle, who are hardware experts, now we don't have to be hardware experts. Speed to deliver the application in terms of time of this type is an important point. We may have been able to deliver the world’s best application and failed to deliver it due to our inability to get the hardware right. This is a critical change in our makeup, our strategy, organization and time to deliver. It also reduces substantially our technical risk.

And look at that change in our budget. Some might think that reduces our budget by $400 million! And some would be wrong. I have reallocated these funds across the Oracle budget categories to enhance the work that they will be doing for us. This is in order to recognize the cost of the rental of the computer time for the cloud computing services of the development environment and application delivery. A $100 million boost to the Oracle Developers category to shore up the number of people we are able to access from the mother ship. And an overall loosening of the budget constraints of the other categories. What we are approaching in the oil and gas industry is unique and necessary. Our success is critical to the success of the profitable oil and gas producer. Our value proposition dictates that this money won't be missed. Therefore we are deploying it to the areas that will increase the probability of our success.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative and profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.

Monday, September 29, 2014

Oracle's OpenWorld 2014 Conference and Our User Community

Yesterday saw the opening of Oracle’s annual database, application and Java conference, or Oracle OpenWorld 2014. This annual ritual includes all the news and features that Oracle has to present to the world. This year should be no different, other than there will be no sailing. I highly recommend watching Oracle founder Larry Ellison’s keynote address. These have been as interesting and as game changing as Steve Jobs keynotes at Apple. Another one to watch for is Renee’ James the president of Intel Corporation whose topic I think will appeal to many of the larger producer firms who have a concern with the cloud computing configuration of People, Ideas & Objects. What I am sure you'll find in her discussion is that Oracle, Intel and People, Ideas & Objects are able to provide you with your own hardware and software to operate your application from within your own organization. The one caveat is that the service providers and user community are the ones that will need to continue to provide you with the capabilities under the decentralized production model.

It makes no difference where your application is operated from. Centralizing it within a cloud configuration reduces the burden of managing the Information Technology elements and opens up the opportunities for change within the business model. The only real calls for ensuring that the applications remain within the organizations four walls are coming from the bureaucrats themselves. It might be one of their last ditch strategies to keep them in place for a while longer. So lets be wise.

I have written here on several occasions that the members of the user community and service providers need to have a higher level of Information Technology understanding. Specifically about relational theory, the Oracle database and Java. Defining this as augmenting your formal education with three or four related university courses. This would aid in the communication with the People, Ideas & Objects development team as there is no way that they are going to be able to learn what is contained within the scope of the user communities oil and gas understanding. This knowledge has other benefits in that it will give the user an understanding of the basics of the technology in what appears to be an explosion of technologies. When in fact the principles, innovations and concepts are based on some fairly basic technologies. Once you have those technologies the appearance of magic disappears from the equation and the user understands what is happening within the application. This is the type of service that we need to provide the dynamic, innovative and profitable oil and gas producer.

There are additional benefits on top of those that I just mentioned. When we look at the Oracle Stack that we use in the Preliminary Specification we see a large number of Oracle specific applications. It is critical to understand that these are not set in stone. If anything I would like to think of them as overall possibilities and suggestions to be built upon. These Oracle Fusion Applications are built using Oracle Fusion Middleware. All of the Preliminary Specification developments outside of the Oracle specific applications will also be built by the Oracle Fusion Middleware server. Think of the Oracle Fusion Middleware server as the plumbing supplies, the lumber, hammers and nails that you would use in building a house. Understanding how to use those tools you could then build any house that you would like, as in the Preliminary Specification. And you would be able to modify any house, or renovate a house, such as the Oracle Fusion Applications. If you understood the Oracle Database and Java at the level that is being suggested here you could conceptually form the ideas of how you want the dining room to look, its features and the People, Ideas & Objects developers would understand exactly what you want and then build it for you. This is where I want us to be.

Building this user community is our current objective. We think that this type of user community and the associated service providers are the necessary ingredient in making sure that the oil and gas industry is provided with the most dynamic, innovative and profitable means of oil and gas operations.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative and profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here

Friday, September 19, 2014

Change at Oracle Corporation

News regarding Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison stepping down from the CEO role came after the close of yesterday’s trading. At 70 years of age some are saying that the time has come for him to take a lesser role in the company. Replacing him as CEO will be Safra Catz and Mark Hurd who have been part of the team at Oracle for many years. Many of the pundits seem to be jumping on the poor financial performance of Oracle in the past few years and attributing that to Mr. Ellison. This announcement coming at the same time as the news that Oracle missed analysts estimates for the quarter in a material way. I expect that the piling on of the industry leaders and others to continue, Larry hasn't made many friends in the days of building Oracle. I too have been at the losing end of some of his antics back in February of 1997. However, I think that what the analysts, the pundits and everyone else will be wrong about is that Larry is doing nothing close to stepping aside. I think they are very wrong and unless there is more information regarding his health or other issues, I think it is fair to assume the following.

Larry Ellison is a visionary. He is the fifth wealthiest man on the planet based on his skills of implementing his vision. Oracle’s technologies are miles ahead of anyone elses in the marketplace. The breadth of offerings is fully diversified in the hardware, software and services domains. Oracle is the IBM of the 1950’s and 1960’s. There are no others that can play the game that they are in. Its just that the game is not being played at this time. People are comparing the financial performance of the firm against the other “cloud” companies such as Salesforce and Workday. I think Oracle is looking to compete in the marketplace that is defined in the Preliminary Specification, the user community and the service providers. Where industries are being disintermediated by technology and looking for the entire technology stack to be provided by one solutions provider.

Oracle has invested $50 billion on over 100 acquisitions over the past decade. They have also invested massive resources in terms of research and development based on Larry’s vision. The products are there, I can see them, and they make me want so badly to get to them. What is needed is to take these disparate products and package them into a coherent single unified message and market that to industries on the basis of what could be. Much as what we are doing here for oil and gas at People, Ideas & Objects. Technically Oracle has the opportunity to provide the hardware, software and related services to the commercial world. Just as IBM did in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Who is going to stop them. And who is going to provide that infrastructure to those industries in the next decade?

IBM’s technology isn't there anymore. They sell very little hardware and the software they do sell is Linux based. Not even their own proprietary operating system. DB2 was a challenger in the database in the past, but can’t hold a candle to Oracle in the distributed computing world. And Oracle was dominant there a decade ago. Sybase is a SAP technology, which is an ERP system, and only an ERP company. HP is on life support. Dell is restructuring. Most of IBM is Lenovo which is Chinese, and therefore government. Where exactly is the competition to Oracle’s unified, diversified, integrated, hardware, software and services offering going to come from? There is no choice. And anyone will need at least two decades to catch up to Larry Ellison's current position.

I’m sure Larry Ellison is frustrated with the impatience of his investors. He still holds 25% of the company and would like to see the developments happen quicker too. He however has seen his impatience get the better of him in the past. He still pays dearly for his attack on his partners in February of 1997. I wasn't the only one. He has been moved to the Executive Chairman position which means he’s still full time. And he is also now the Chief Technology Officer. So maybe it is his chief responsibility to make a coherent message of this broad product range. I see this as removing the constraints of being a CEO and enabling him to focus on where he builds the most value. On developing the overall vision and delivering the products of the firm.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative and profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here

Friday, February 14, 2014

#Oracle Budget

We now turn to the Oracle end of our budget. Oracle plays a critical part in the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification. Their Fusion Middleware and Fusion Applications are the foundation of the eleven module Preliminary Specification. We also use Oracle’s database, Java, hardware, services and solutions. One could suggest we are an Oracle shop. However with this level of commitment to these product categories we can secure Oracle’s commitment to provide the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations.

Lets start off with something tangible. Hardware is used by People, Ideas & Objects to run the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification in a cloud computing configuration. Oracle engineers their hardware to run their database and Java technologies at far faster speeds than the competition. Evaluating Oracle on a cost / performance basis is a slam dunk. No one can currently come close to the types of performance that Oracle is able to attain with their hardware and database. This is one of the premier reasons that we have selected Oracle. This is the reason that they are the dominant database technology in the world and will stay that way as long as Larry Ellison remains the head of the firm. Larry Ellison is the Steve Jobs of the corporate world, and Oracle is the Apple. We have therefore budgeted $100 to 200 million in hardware for providing the Preliminary Specification to the oil and gas industry on a cloud computing configuration. This amount of computing power is augmented with additional processing power. With a share of the $25 to 50 million in the services budget being allocated for the use of the Oracle Cloud service for any of our peak computing demand requirements.

The second budget allocation is $5 million for software. This number has no basis in its determination other than it is a best guess as to what the cost will be to acquire the software for the cloud configuration of Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Fusion Applications. There are individual user licenses that are also budgeted and noted below, this is for the one time acquisition costs of the software for development purposes.

There are a number of services that are offered by Oracle that can be accessed through this budget. I mentioned the cloud computing services. There are also Database Administrators, tuning and related services that fall outside of the development domain. These are collected and provided in this budget allocation of $25 to 50 million.

Then we come to the Oracle developers. It has been my experience that you can learn about Oracle technologies through experience, or you can hire their developers to implement that high level of knowledge for you. The ability to hire their developers provides you with the understanding of the technologies at a higher level. One that you would have eventually learned, at substantial cost. I choose the cheap way and have allocated a healthy budget for the inclusion of $150 to 350 million or 450 to 1050 man years of Oracle developers. Undertaking a large development such as People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification and using Oracle Fusion based products demands that we extensively use Oracle developers. They are, in a very significant way, an insurance policy for the oil and gas industry in terms of the overall deliverability of the project.

The last budgeted item is for user licenses during the development for the developers and the members of the user community. These user licenses are for development only. Additional charges will come into play for the runtime use of the application. And the user license charges at that time will be much larger as their will be large portions of the industry using the application, not just the user community and the developers. These licenses include the entire stack of database, Java, Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Fusion Application licenses. These are budgeted at $3,700 per man year for a total of $9 to 18 million.

Oracle brings a unique character to the Preliminary Specification. I am pleased to be providing People, Ideas & Objects applications on their technology. When we add the user community to this we become ever so stronger. We are building an application for the 21st century and now is the time to get involved.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Software Development Budget


Last week we had the opportunity to briefly discuss some of the budget issues around People, Ideas & Objects. The budget for the Preliminary Specification has been set at $100 million which represents 5 - 10% of the total initial commercial releases costs. Suggesting that the costs of People, Ideas & Objects software development costs, in its first commercial release would be in the area of $1 to 2 billion. The next few weeks we will have the opportunity to more fully engage in these budget discussions and learn why these costs are necessary.

First of all I don't want to get into a detailed line by line discussion of the budget, but discuss the overall scope and the type of application that is needed in the marketplace and how that type of application could not be developed in any other manner other then through a budget of this substantial size. These budget discussions also assume that I have not underestimated the scope of the undertaking, a very real possibility.

Having an oil and gas application that meets the needs of the users and producers, that is based on the Draft Specification will provide efficiencies if it is built properly. That assumes that it is built with the appropriate budget in place. A $1 - 2 billion software development budget for an application that is on top of the costs for Oracle Fusion applications is larger then anything the industry has attempted before. Add in the producers unique costs of integration, our hybrid cloud computing investment requirements; the producers costs of funding this project, all in, are substantial. This is the reason that we have turned to industry for our funding. Expectations that investment capital would fulfill these capital requirements are misguided.

The integrated nature of using the Joint Operating Committee, and the level of change that is introduced requires that we approach this project with this scope of application and budget in mind. What makes this possible today is the People, Ideas & Objects Value Proposition. Where we allocate the costs of these developments over a large subscription base of producers. Costs of developments are disbursed through to the producer base mitigating these costs as incidentals to each producer. On the other hand, with our potential ability to aggregate a large budget, our capacity to highly engineer software development solutions will provide real value in terms of software development costs per barrel of oil equivalent.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. Email me here if you need an invite.

Friday, September 24, 2010

More on Oracle Fusion Applications

Larry Ellison finished off his 2010 Oracle Open World conference with a keynote that focused on his new applications and other related announcements. I find that his presentations are must see events and this one did not disappoint. Many of the comments that he made will have significant impact on the technology marketplace for years to come. These are some of the points that he made.

When talking about Exadata and Exalogic, the new hardware to run the Oracle database and Java, he continually stressed they were “hardware and software engineered together”. When buying these products every component of the servers configuration is standardized down to the most minute point. They are not something you could order with different components being upgraded or traded on. This was important as the support and services of those configurations will be standard across large portions of Oracle’s marketplace. Therefore if a database server fails for an Oracle customer on the other side of the Atlantic, they can diagnose it, and engineer a fix that can then be populated across the Exadata and Exalogic installed base. A fundamentally different way to deliver hardware and software reliability, accessibility, security and service.

Oracle will continue to spend over $4.0 billion in research and development each year. Oracle Fusion Applications were Oracle’s largest engineering project ever. Another comment that caught my attention was the additions that were being added to Java. He would be introducing new 2D and 3D vector graphics to the specification. These graphics in addition to HTML 5.0 would provide the opportunity to expand and enhance the user interface of People, Ideas & Objects applications.

Comments that were made about Oracle Fusion Applications included their interaction with other ERP applications. One of the key roles we look to the Community of Independent Service Providers is the integration of the oil and gas producers firm on to the People, Ideas & Objects applications. As has been discussed here, this integration will now include Fusion integration with SAP, PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards and Oracle E-Business. During the presentation Ellison stated that no one would propose a “rip and replace” and this reverse integration was a key attribute of firms adopting Oracle Fusion Applications, and by association People, Ideas & Objects.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

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Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Components of Oracle Fusion Applications

Included in the Oracle announcement is...

Oracle Fusion Financials is part of Oracle Fusion Applications, which are completely open, standards-based enterprise applications that can be easily integrated into a service-oriented architecture. Designed as a complete suite of modular applications, Oracle Fusion Applications help you improve performance, lower IT costs, and get better results. Whether you choose one module, a product family, or the entire suite, Oracle enables you to gain the benefits of Oracle Fusion Applications at a pace that matches your business needs.
Ah we’ll take the whole suite. I’m not going to detail the actual modules that will be used in the application, that's for others to decide. My involvement in the Preliminary Specification and subsequent development is nothing. As I have mentioned here before, I have to choose between doing all of the work or none, and I have taken the sane choice. There is no in between. Although I would love to participate in these developments, my role is to secure the financial resources for the development team and Community of Independent Service Providers.

From what I have been able to read about the application modules, they will be extremely flexible and provide the Community of Independent Service Providers with the ability to bring substantial and innovative systems to their producer clients.

Two things that stand out in my quick review, the first being what’s not there. That is any oil and gas specific functionality or process management. These are generic applications that are designed to be developed further for the individual industries use. That is where People, Ideas & Objects, and the Community of Independent Service Providers, will develop and provide the industry with systems based on using the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the innovative producer.

The second point is about the overall architecture of the applications. SAP requires you to pick a process that is close to what you want and cater the firm to that process. As was noted in a recent post, the Oracle Fusion Applications provide the opportunity to design the most efficient organizational process and then build the systems to support the optimal solution.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Larry Ellison Oracle Keynote

We have video highlights of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's Keynote address. In this video Ellison talks about thier new products ExaLogic and Oracle Fusion Applications.



Oracle ExaLogic complements ExaData which was released within the last year. ExaLogic works to provide the Java Server functions to the ExaData Database.

Oracle Fusion Applications take up the last third of the video and they are all that I had hoped for them to be. Oracle have based the applications on 100% on their Fusion Middleware which provides People, Ideas & Objects with the fine granularity and control of the applications process and functionality. So when we embed, as the Draft Specification states, the production volumes within the Accounting Voucher module. We gain the ability to implement these features in a seamless and efficient manner, with the full integrity of Oracle's investment in Oracle Fusion Applications.

Oracle has put everything they have into the future of Oracle Fusion Applications. The product is the result of "taking the best of Oracle Financials, PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards and Seibel", based on Java (recall Oracle now owns Java), and the result of five years of development efforts. If Oracle has done this right, which I think they have, they have a sizable opportunity ahead of them.

More good news comes in the form of when the applications will be generally available. It is reasonable to assume that they will have these applications available in the first half of 2011 which is in line with our needs of starting the development of the Preliminary Specification on January 1, 2011.

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Friday, September 17, 2010

Quick Post - Oracle Fusion Applications

This is a quick note that on Sunday Oracle will begin their 2010 Oracle Open World conference. The main announcement that is of particularly interest to us involves their Oracle Fusion Applications. These are the next generation ERP applications that all of Oracle’s installed base, consisting of Oracle Financials, PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards and Siebel, will eventually move to. Built on the Oracle Fusion Middleware Java server, these applications are developed with the future in mind and represent a multi-billion dollar investment by Oracle.

People, Ideas & Objects are Oracle customers and are including Oracle Fusion Applications within our software offering. We are leveraging that multi-billion investment that Oracle has made with the Intellectual Property (IP) around using the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the innovative oil and gas producer.

What does Oracle Fusion Applications have in store for the oil and gas firm? It’s unknown at this point. Of the many industries that Oracle applications cater too, oil and gas is on the lighter side in terms of investment and features. I expect this to be the case for the new Oracle Fusion Applications. If they were making any oil and gas specific investments I think we would have heard about them. Nonetheless, irrespective of Oracle’s plans in oil and gas, People, Ideas & Objects will build the applications based on the Draft Specification and Oracle Fusion Applications.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

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Friday, June 18, 2010

We are an Oracle Customer

Cloud computing is a paradigm shift. The consequences of moving to that new platform are substantial for all concerned. As software developers, we are not immune to these changes. Viewing cloud computing, as developers, from the same perspective as that used in the past would eliminate many of the benefits of this new dynamic. This post seeks to highlight how People, Ideas & Objects, as cloud computing software providers to the oil and gas industry, approach the use of Oracle technologies and services.

The overall strategy that I have used with respect to Oracle is that we are perceived as a customer. In today's environment, Oracle's business is based on selling technology directly to the oil and gas firms. People, Ideas & Objects now represents the oil and gas firms interest by providing the cloud computing services, and therefore we are Oracle's customer.

Usually, as developers, we would be classified within Oracle's developer network. Providing People, Ideas & Objects with a discount on all of their products. As a result of being a "customer" as opposed to the traditional "developer", People, Ideas & Objects will have to pay the full list price for Oracle's technology. This premium being paid entitles us to perceive Oracle as we noted in the second paragraph of this post. This is also wholly consistent with how the innovative oil and gas producer is focused on their key competitive advantages of their asset base, and earth science & engineering capabilities.

Many of Oracle's technologies are the preferred choice in most markets. That is to say that we will use Oracle technology and services at every opportunity. Hardware, operating systems, database, middleware, applications, consulting and services. The only area of conflict in our policies is regarding the Community of Independent Service Providers (CISP). If a member of the CISP and Oracle are providing similar services, we will defer to, and support the CISP.

People, Ideas & Objects as providers of a software development capability and cloud computing provider. Are in partnership with Oracle in bringing this technology to the innovative oil and gas producer. One thing that can be said about Oracle's technology, is that it is the best. When we look at the difficulties in increasing the market supply of oil and gas to the global economy. It is challenges such as these that Oracle is prepared for.

Society is put in peril when world oil production declines. There is evidence that the worlds oil production has declined. Therefore the world needs to have the energy industry expand its production. To do so requires that we reorganize to enhance the division of labor and specialization within the industry. As has been proven, this reorganization could achieve far greater oil and gas production. Management of the industry are conflicted in expanding the output of the industry. The less they do, the higher the oil and gas prices and the better they appear to perform. This managerial conflict must be addressed and the performance of the industry unleashed. To do so requires the current management of the industry to fund People, Ideas & Objects and build the systems as defined in the Draft Specification. Please join me here.

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Saturday, April 17, 2010

Oracle Stack - Oracle Consulting

We continue on our review of the Oracle product and servicing offerings that will comprise the People, Ideas & Objects application offerings and infrastructure. This post deals with the services that Oracle Consulting provides, and as such we may need to access from time to time. The key point that I want to make in this post is the potential for conflict between the use of Oracle Consulting and services that are, or may be provided by members of the Community of Independent Service Providers (CISP).

People, Ideas & Objects strategy with regard to our use of Oracle Consulting services is of a critical nature. The need to establish the policy that if anything is in conflict between the use of Oracle Consulting and the CISP, the Oracle Consulting conflict will be removed. This policy is to establish the Community of Independent Service Providers as the key resource of People, Ideas & Objects. And as our review of Lazonick's paper "The Chandlerian corporation and the theory of innovative enterprise" has noted, the CISP are a critical resource of the innovative oil and gas producer. People, Ideas & Objects, of all the various communities should lead by example and respect the importance of developing this resource.

The one area that I foresee this conflict policy not having an effect is in the area of the Fusion Application stack itself. Our developers have the opportunity to leverage off of the work done by Oracle and this can only be done in a substantial way by engaging them directly through Oracle Consulting. The same can be said for the support of the hardware at our proposed Cloud Computing facility. Oracle, now with Sun hardware, are unique in providing service and support to their hardware and software offerings.

The area that I see the CISP providing the unique services is in the understanding of the user. This is carried forward by bringing that understanding in defined enhancements to the People, Ideas & Objects application modules. Defining the software and providing the services to support the innovative oil and gas producer. 

Our appeal should be based on these eight "Focused on" priorities and values of how better the oil and gas industry and its operations could be handled. They may not initially be the right way to go, but we are committed to working with the various communities to discover and ensure the right ones are. If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, investor or shareholder, who would be interested in funding these software developments and communities, please follow our Funding Policies & Procedures, and our Hardware Policies & Procedures. If your a government that collects royalties from oil and gas producers, and are concerned about the accuracy of your royalty income, please review our Royalty Policies & Procedures and email me. And if your a potential user of this software, and possibly as a member of the Community of Independent Service Providers, please join us here.

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Thursday, April 15, 2010

Oracle Stack - Oracle Fusion Applications

Continuing on with our review of the Oracle product offerings and defining which of their applications and architectures are to be included in the application modules of People, Ideas & Objects. In a previous post, we adopted wholesale the Oracle Database and Middleware product offerings. In another post we noted the Application Integration Architecture and how the Community of Independent Service Providers could use these tools to aid in the accounting integration of a producers system. All of the discussion of the Oracle products and architectures is being aggregated under the Oracle-Stack Label on this blog. Once our review is complete we will be updating the Draft Specification.

Oracle Fusion Applications are a difficult product to commit too since they don't exist as of yet. However, what we can determine from Oracle is that the project is providing the kind of application infrastructure that is necessary to build the Draft Specification and deliver it through the cloud computing paradigm. Oracle Fusion Applications and Middleware are using the best parts of the Agile / Scrum development methodology, and therefore consistent with our approach to development. There are no cultural differences between the Oracle methods and those that were proposed in People, Ideas & Objects developments.

Critical to the success of the Oracle Fusion Applications is their use and application of the Oracle Middleware stack. This is the way that applications are built in most architectures and is consistent with what we were proposing to do before we joined Oracle as a customer. Java Enterprise servers provide the necessary infrastructure and control of information that makes not using a Java Enterprise server, redundant. Recreating the wheel each time a project is started is counter to the Java way.

It is clear in many of the videos and documents that I viewed that the web is the centre of the user experience. All of the application demonstrations and presentations reflected this web centered delivery. Using standard web browsers, Oracle Fusion Middleware and Applications gains this ease of use and universality of access. Making the user experience robust in the cloud computing paradigm. We will need to determine if the web platform provides the level of access control and security necessary to meet our potential producers needs. It is reasonable to assume that if Oracle is using the browser this extensively, they've cracked the security problems and are satisfied with the control. The user having browser access would be a performance and ease-of-use improvement over using Java Web Start, which is the current method defined in the Draft Specification.

One of the key attributes of becoming an Oracle customer is the access to the understanding and knowledge they have in the ERP application market-space. Oracle is the largest enterprise software company. They have experience in developing, deploying and supporting their ERP application offerings. This experience is based on a history of PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, Siebel , BEA and Oracle Financials. Our costs may be substantially higher by using Oracle, but what we gain in doing so brings our product offering to a higher level of quality. According to videos that I viewed on YouTube Oracle has over 2,500 application developers just in the Fusion Applications development. As a result, we inherit the efforts of these people through the Java re-use attributes.

To view one of the best documents on Oracle Fusion Applications go here. Where on page five the following is noted.

The goal of Oracle Fusion Applications is to help customers transform their business into a next generation organization. This next-generation organization will have more adaptable business processes, more productive people, and more manageable systems. Next generation adaptability will come from a native service oriented architecture that allows for easier integration with other applications and configurable business processes. Embedded business intelligence, a rich, pervasive, and personalized user experience, and Enterprise 2.0 business processes will power next generation productivity. Finally centralized security, audit, and controls, and the ability to deploy applications on premise, as a service, or through business process outsourcing will deliver next generation manageability.
This quotation shows that Oracle and People, Ideas & Objects are wholly consistent in terms of our approach to defining and supporting the software for the innovative oil and gas producer. Therefore, the commitment to these products and architectures is made quite easily.

Next on this topic we'll review the Oracle Consulting offerings. Our appeal should be based on these eight "Focused on" priorities and values of how better the oil and gas industry and its operations could be handled. They may not initially be the right way to go, but we are committed to working with the various communities to discover and ensure the right ones are. If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, investor or shareholder, who would be interested in funding these software developments and communities, please follow our Funding Policies & Procedures, and our Hardware Policies & Procedures. If your a government that collects royalties from oil and gas producers, and are concerned about the accuracy of your royalty income, please review our Royalty Policies & Procedures and email me. And if your a potential user of this software, and possibly as a member of the Community of Independent Service Providers, please join us here.

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Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Oracle - Stack Application Integration Architecture

We continue along with our review of Oracle Corporation product offerings in order to revise the Draft Specification. It is clear that the addition of Oracle products brings a level of capability to People, Ideas & Objects that is impressive. This is our second post on this topic, with our review being aggregated under the Oracle-Stack label on this blog. When we are complete, in terms of defining the Oracle Products that will be part of People, Ideas & Objects offerings, I will update the Draft Specification to include the changes. So far this has been a fairly easy process with the wholesale adoption of the Database and Middleware stacks of Oracle products. Today we move into the Application section of their product offerings. Specifically we look at their Application Integration Architecture (AIA).

One of the areas that Oracle has been busy with in the past decade is in the area of acquisitions. Might be the understatement of this century. They now own a substantial portion of the ERP and CRM business environments and are in possession of many of the top applications. PeopleSoft, BEA, Siebel, J.D. Edwards and Sun are just a few of the many acquisitions that they have made. These acquisitions have come with a substantial number of customers, particularly when you consider they also owned their own ERP systems in Oracle Financials. To get ahead of the competition they realized they needed to build a new generation of applications for their customers. Oracle Fusion Applications is that architecture and Oracle Application Integration Architecture is how those customers on PeopleSoft, Oracle Financials, Siebel, J.D. Edwards, SAP and others are going to move to Oracle Fusion Applications.

From People, Ideas & Objects point of view, we see that there are a number of systems that are used in the oil and gas marketplace. We are also like Oracle in that we are developers of custom applications based on the vision of the Draft Specification and the reality of Oracle Fusion Applications. The more I read about the Oracle product stack, the more I feel this is the correct direction to move. Oracle Fusion Applications appear to be bringing to market a different concept of what ERP systems are comprised of. Application names that end in "Hub" and "Engine" are exactly what we need to build Partnership Accounting, Accounting Voucher and other modules.

As has been indicated in many previous posts. The Community of Independent Service Providers are a key element of how the user community and People, Ideas & Objects developers interact. One of the key areas that we will be looking to the CISP for is the accounting systems integration. By using Oracle Application Integration Architecture tools they could move a producer from their current system, whether that is SAP, Oracle Financials, Qbyte or others to People, Ideas & Objects much quicker, with less cost and difficulty by predefining and pre-programming much of the interfaces across the disparate systems. With Oracle's stated objective of eventually moving all of their customers to Oracle Fusion Applications, making the integration from those applications as seamless as possible, is only common sense. What is different this time is the scale at which Oracle has approached the transition and that is reflected in the Application Integration Architecture offering. People, Ideas & Objects has access to these tools and a community of service providers, the CISP, to make these transitions as painless as possible.

Two resources are the most appropriate to review to get a handle on this unique and exciting tool set. Listen to a two part interview of Oracle Vice President Jose Lazarus, here and here, talking on AIA and the "Evolutionary Path to Fusion" white-paper. Some of the key thoughts behind the product are noted below.

  • Supports transactions across multiple systems.
  • Delivers integrated business process.
  • Pre-built integration.
  • Part of Fusion Applications.

Jose Lazuras talks about the Oracle product strategy for AIA. Their core strategy is to simply limit costs and risks of integrating multiple applications. In February of 2008 they expanded on this product strategy by introducing their "Foundation Pack" which is a programming module for integration purposes. If I didn't already have a job at People, Ideas & Objects I would certainly look into joining as a member of the CISP working on producer integrations. 

Lastly one can define what a product is by also defining what it is not. With our review of Oracle products it is determined that the People, Ideas & Objects application will be based on Oracle Fusion Applications (more on this in the next post on the Oracle-Stack) and therefore, will not be built on the following Oracle products.

  • Oracle E-Business Suite
  • PeopleSoft Enterprise
  • Siebel
  • J.D. Edwards Enterprise One
  • J.D. Edwards World
  • Agile
  • AutoVue

Our appeal should be based on these eight "Focused on" priorities and values of how better the oil and gas industry and its operations could be handled. They may not initially be the right way to go, but we are committed to working with the various communities to discover and ensure the right ones are. If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, investor or shareholder, who would be interested in funding these software developments and communities, please follow our Funding Policies & Procedures, and our Hardware Policies & Procedures. If your a government that collects royalties from oil and gas producers, and are concerned about the accuracy of your royalty income, please review our Royalty Policies & Procedures and email me. And if your a potential user of this software, and possibly as a member of the Community of Independent Service Providers, please join us here.

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Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Oracle Stack - Database and Middleware

With this post I will start to detail the various Oracle components that we will use in developing and delivering People, Ideas & Objects Draft and other Specifications. These posts will be aggregated under the "Oracle-Stack" label for future reference. I will also refresh the Draft Specification with the greater detail and information provided in these posts. Today, I want to do the easy lifting and talk about the Oracle Database and Middleware products.

What can't be said about the Oracle Database. It is remarkable that the value of Oracle is the vision that Larry Ellison continues to see for this product. Ellison is to databases what Steve Jobs is to the consumer. As it stands, the Oracle Database feature set is light years ahead of the IBM DB2 product offering. I don't know what IBM has been up to, although it doesn't appear to be too much based on the changes to DB2.

One of the key attributes of People, Ideas & Objects use of the Oracle Database is that the database rules. These object-relational mapping strategies frighten me. I started developing to the Oracle Database in 1993 and was quickly indoctrinated to relational theory. Nothing in the object-relational world provides a stronger argument then Oracle's implementation of relational theory.

That being stated we have to live in the real world, and accept that our world includes Java. So the architecture will follow along these lines. The database rules. That is to say all data operations that create, update or delete data are done by the database, based on database related logic. Application logic will be handled by Java and it will have the object-relational mapping between it and the database provided by Oracle's Toplink. This will provide the database integrity that will be necessary for the application to operate as it is required. So in summary, the application model, when creating, updating or deleting data will defer to the relational database for its operations.

Review of "Oracle's Database" layer of applications and frameworks introduces us to clustering, warehousing, security, compression, caching, search and other services. These will all be deployed as we are working within the cloud computing paradigm. The Security & Access Control module of the People, Ideas & Objects application will incorporate 100% of the Oracle Security, Oracle Identity, access control and our Military Command & Control Metaphor. This concludes the discussion on the Database layer and now we move to the middleware.

The same discussion noted above about the database ruling the applications logic when it comes to insert, update or delete operations applies in the middleware layer of the Oracle product offerings. What's important to note is that Oracle had me at "Fusion". This is an unbelievable grouping of applications that are designed to enable the cloud computing paradigm. Controlling all the elements of the technology stack, from silicon, Java, Solaris etc, which makes the paradigm a reality. My favorite product in this layer is the Oracle Coherence offering.

Of note we will also be moving from the GlassFish application server to Oracle's offering. This provides us with a substantial boost in terms of the performance of the servers. GlassFish remains the reference implementation, but Oracle has such strength in this area, that they have placed GlassFish one tier down from their Oracle WebLogic Server Enterprise Edition product. To repeat we will be using Oracle WebLogic Server Enterprise Edition.

This covers off the two bottom layers of the Oracle product offering. As you can see it was the easy lifting due to the fact that we have adopted both layers wholesale. Addition of the Military Command & Control Metaphor will be no easier, nor more difficult as a result of these changes.

Next up will be discussion of the Applications layer of Oracle products. The next post will be on the Application Integration Architecture, specifically. Much of the thinking that went into the development of the Draft Specification has similarly been adopted by Oracle. That is to say their design and ours really resonate.

One thing that we haven't discussed is the cost associated to moving to these products. My attitude is who cares. With the oil and gas industry being a primary industry generating $3.8 trillion per year, the associated costs of Oracle licenses will be far below one one-hundredth of 1%. ($381 million) or there about's.

If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, investor or shareholder, who would be interested in funding these software developments and communities, please follow our Funding Policies & Procedures, and our Hardware Policies & Procedures. If your a government that collects royalties from oil and gas producers, and are concerned about the accuracy of your royalty income, please review our Royalty Policies & Procedures and email me. And if your a potential user of this software, and possibly as a member of the Community of Independent Service Providers, please join us here.

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