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Comparative Study of Oracle GCS vs. Hyperion HFM

Overview:
This document is intended to illustrate some of the competitive differences between Oracle’s Global
Consolidation system (GCS) and Hyperion Solutions Financial Management (HFM). This document cites
multiple references from outside sources, customers, consultants, and research firms. Research data
contained in this document are attributed to their proper sources. In order to obtain credible opinions from
customers of Oracle and Hyperion, many users and administrators have chosen to go ‘off the record’ with
their comments – please treat these opinions as such. Any conclusions of this document are to be
considered the opinion of Pinnacle Technology Partners Inc. only.

Oracle GCS version 11i and Hyperion Financial Management 3.4 are the basis of comparison for this
evaluation. Pinnacle Technology Partners makes no guarantee that future versions of the software will
contain any of the features or functionality of neither the current product, nor those promised in future
versions by the vendors themselves. Some features and functionality may not be applicable or necessary
for all prospects but should not be disregarded as they are often a sign of the maturity of a product, or
signal the vendor willingness to develop customer focused solutions. It is recommended that you discuss
your consolidation and reporting needs with a Pinnacle representative before selecting any vendor or
product.

Required Features and Functions Available in GCS and HFM

Financial and Strategic Data

More than summarized financial information, the system must also store detailed strategic
information, such as product profitability analyses, regional analyses, and so on.

Flexible Chart of Accounts

To allow for versatile line of business reporting, the system must be able to keep a flexible, multi-
dimensional detail while still supporting a global account framework. Line item intelligence for
processing different account types is required.

Multiple Hierarchies
To allow for versatile management reporting, the system must be able to keep a flexible, multi-tiered
relational detail which supports the many hierarchies needed for internal and external requirements.

Data from Any Source

A critical function is collecting financial data from diverse systems and geographic locations, and
doing so accurately with an easy interface, yet a robust engine for ETL processing.

Accounting Calendars
Support is required for any accounting calendar such as calendar, fiscal, 4-4-5 or 13 month.
Aggregated reporting levels such as quarterly, year-to-date, and annually must be available.

Currency Translation
Functionality is required for Multi-currency translation that supports FASB 8 and FASB 52 reporting
and cumulative translation adjustment (CTA) analysis.

Flexible and Ad-hoc Reporting

Must allow creation of flexible production reporting as well as dynamic user prompt-driven reporting.

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The Market space:

Hyperion Financial Management

was rated superior to Oracle GCS in
the SPEX head-to-head Comparison
in 2002 evaluation. Oracle did not
even enter the 2003 evaluation.

HFM Oracle
Functionality 5.0 4.3
User friendliness 4.9 4.1
Technology 4.0 3.4
Market Strength 4.3 3.8
Overall 4.4 3.8
Source: META Group, March 2002

Oracle’s market share

within the business
intelligence space has
slowly diminished to a
distant seventh place.

Microsoft’s Analysis
Services became the
leading OLAP platform,
making Hyperion and
Cognos concentrate on
Business Performance
Management (BPM)
applications such as
HFM and Adaytum.

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1. Oracle Global Consolidation System - Oracle GCS (Version 11i) by Oracle Corporation

Overview:
Oracle Global Consolidation System is a distributed application for financial reporting, analysis, budgeting, and
planning. By integrating a central source of management data with powerful analytical tools, the system enables
organizations to meet their critical financial objectives - controlling costs, developing and analyzing performance
metrics, evaluating risks and opportunities, and formulating future direction.

Key Features:
Centralizes corporate data - Reporting capabilities at corporate, divisional, and operational levels
Enables dynamic access to data from a Web browser, allowing users to rotate and drill down on reports and
graphs, collect and write data back to the shared database
Built-in statistical and financial calculations create forecasts and calculate performance ratios
Delivers financial data and robust data analysis and collection tools throughout the organization: product
profitability, exception analysis, product mix analysis, variance analysis, funds allocation, activity based costing
Interfaces with existing ledgers, RDBMS, and spreadsheets
Users receive and write-back data that they are privileged to see
Intuitive data filtering simplifies exception reporting
Inherent drill and rotate capabilities display data intuitively
Integrates data from Finance, Sales, Marketing, and Manufacturing
General ledger and other data into can be incorporated to derive new financial information
Results of what-if analyses display immediately

Product Summary
Mode of Delivery: Packaged Application

Solution Classification: Budgeting, Financial Planning and Analysis

Target business size: Greater than 100 users

Pricing details: $1 to Indefinite

Operating Environment

Operating Systems SCO UNIX/PC UNIX

Supported: Windows XP/2000/NT

Implementation, Training, and Support

Implementation Description: IT Provider assistance in configuration

Training Description: Some training recommended - some training from the IT Provider/reseller
may be helpful.

Support Description:
Web site support - product support questions, knowledgebase, are available
at the company Web site.
Email support - questions can be sent directly to a support staff for review.
Telephone support - calls can be placed directly to a support staff.
On-site support - a representative from the IT Provider/reseller can come to
the customer site.

General Information
Source code for this Closed
product is:

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2. Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) by Hyperion Solutions Corporation

Overview:
Designed for large-scale Web deployment, Hyperion Financial Management acts as a shared financial
resource for thousands of users across the enterprise so that they can collaborate in the day-to-day
management of the business. In the same application, users can produce auditable reports and forecasts for
external consumers, such as regulatory bodies, financial analysts, stakeholders and business partners.

Part of Hyperion Financial Analysis Solutions

Hyperion's world-class financial analysis solutions allow organizations to maximize the potential of their
corporate resources. W ith Hyperion Financial Analysis Solutions, finance staff will spend less time gathering
and processing information and more time analyzing financial results and supporting strategic decision
making. This yields competitive advantage and the agility to capitalize on business opportunities, acquire
additional capital and outperform their stakeholders' expectations.

Product Summary
Mode of Delivery: Packaged Application

Solution Classification: Budgeting, Financial Planning and Analysis

Distinguishing Features: With Hyperion Financial Management, organizations can:

-Develop value-focused strategies
-Link their financial plans to these strategies
-Monitor the execution of those plans to deliver the expected value
Key Features:
-Unified Financial Management radically reduces system maintenance and
eliminates the need to conduct lengthy reconciliations. Financial analysts
can determine the consequences of pursuing new opportunities, such as
exploiting global markets, opening e-commerce channels, or entering new
partner relationships. They can gather and consolidate historic results to
monitor the execution of their plans, analyze variances and model new
scenarios - all based on a universal set of measures and business rules.
-A Web-architected approach with centralized applications significantly
reduces the costs of deployment and maximizes the use of available IT
resources. Hyperion Financial Management employs a highly scalable
architecture that makes financial data and processes available to a wide
community of users via Windows? or a Web browser.
-Prepackaged functionality in an extensible framework provides the ability
to build on top of the extensive portfolio of functionality delivered within
Hyperion Financial Management using industry-standard tools. Customers
can make their applications fit their business processes without incurring
high costs and delays before seeing any benefit. It also allows them to
address a wide range of business functions within one application
framework, enhancing the ROI.
Investments in ERP, CRM and data warehouse systems are maximized
because Hyperion Financial --Management's robust application integration
technology acts as a source or target for data from these systems. Data is
quickly translated, consolidated, adjusted, finalized and reported, enabling
users to spend more time analyzing and less time processing data.

Target business size: Greater than 100 users

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Pricing details:
Operating Environment
Operating Systems
Supported:
Programming Languages
Supported:
Implementation, Training, and Support
Implementation Description:
Implementation notes:
Training Description:
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$1 to Indefinite
Solutions are customized for the specific needs of clients.
Windows XP/2000/NT
Windows 95/98/ME
HTML, VBScript
Consultant installation and configuration
IT Provider installation and configuration
IT Provider assistance in configuration
Customer installation and configuration
Hyperion Consulting Services is designed to help maximize your return on
Hyperion products. Experienced Hyperion consultants help tailor solutions
to your particular reporting, analysis, modeling, and planning
requirements. Thorough reviews of the company's management cycle and
end-user goals shape implementation and project strategies. The right
resources are the keys to a successful implementation. Hyperion's staff of
MBAs and professional product-certified consultants is highly skilled, with
years of product, technical, and product management experience in a
multitude of business environments and industries. Hyperion consultants
complete a rigorous training, mentoring, and certification program that
ensures your organization receives the level and type of expertise needed
on every implementation.
Unparalleled Expertise:
Hyperion has the know-how and resources necessary for successful
implementation, enterprise integration, customization, project
management, consulting, and training. Hyperion's exclusive phase-by-
phase implementation approach, Structured Techniques for Assured
Results (STAR?), provides the framework to deliver solutions that meet
even your most complex business information requirements. Your
Hyperion projects are done right the first time, on time, and with minimal
risk. W e have:
-Over 17 years of experience focused exclusively on Hyperion product
implementations, and training
-Successfully implemented Hyperion solutions at thousands of client sites
worldwide
-Trained tens of thousands of users how to most efficiently use Hyperion
Analytic Application Software
The Ultimate in Choice and Flexibility
More than 350 Hyperion Alliance Partners supplement Hyperion's
technology, applications, consulting, and training expertise. Hyperion
works with these partners after carefully selecting them for the unique,
complementary skill sets they bring to the overall business engagements
of clients like you.
Some training recommended - some training from the IT Provider/reseller
may be helpful.

Training Notes:
Support Description:
Support Notes:
General Information
Source code for this product is:
This product has been installed
in these Industries:
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Discover how our award-winning training offerings and instructors
address the full spectrum of your training needs. W e offer classroom
training, as well as our easy and cost-effective e-Training, which includes:
Computer-based Training (CBT)
Web-based Training (W BT)
Virtual Classroom Training (VCT)
We also offer customized training solutions designed to ensure your
organization experiences a successful product rollout and smooth day-to-
day operations. For large-scale rollouts, Hyperion provides training-needs
analysis and creates an appropriate training and support strategy. W e
work closely with project managers to integrate this strategy with your
rollout schedules.
Web site support - product support questions, knowledgebase, are
available at the company Web site.
Email support - questions can be sent directly to a support staff for
review.
Telephone support - calls can be placed directly to a support staff.
On-site support - a representative from the IT Provider/reseller can come
to the customer site.
Our award-winning support organization focuses on delivering timely and
accurate resolutions to our clients and partners. Expert support engineers
specialize in application and tools support to meet your critical business
needs. All of our support engineers are well versed in multiple Hyperion
products, making them skillful troubleshooters, able to offer you guidance
and useful tips on your full suite of products. Our web-based support
grants you access to our self-support tools and the ability to obtain
assistance.
We also offer additional services through our Enhanced Support
Offerings. Enhanced Support Offerings provide a range of additional
features for those customers with special support needs based on unique
geographical or time demands. These offerings allow you to obtain 7x24
production support, a dedicated support team, and/or customized service.
The Support Page enables clients to access important support and
product related information right from their desktops, any time of the day
or night. It contains the latest product news and release announcements,
documentation information, online product help, upgrades, and more. The
page also offers an alternate method for submitting requests for support
assistance. Access to the page is available to all clients who have current
maintenance contracts with Hyperion.
Closed
Healthcare
Computers and Technology
Education and Training
Banking and Finance
Retail and W holesale
Telecommunications
Insurance
Food and Beverage
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HFM Architecture is considered technically superior:

• N-tier architecture does not have much overhead to operate and gives incredible benefits like hardware
scalability, user load balancing, and failover – technically sound!

• Application server is Windows-based, but database can be on Oracle and Unix!

• Reports and Analyzer are Unix/Java-based

• Security – HFM stores no passwords and can operate with firewalls between any and all layers with ability to
authenticate against iPlanet and Active Directory as well as NTLM, you decide

• Win32-based user interface (‘fat client’) required for administrative functions and report creation

• Only production Reports, not Analyzer (Java applet) require fat client

• Administrative functions need fat client, 98% of users would just be using the web.

• HFM is only on NT and per platform will cost more to operate than having all financial application components
on a Unix processing platform

• Only the HFM application server needs to be NT-2000 based and that gives you flexibility and scalability as
well with hardware n-tier architecture and takes away the dependency on a single point of failure as the
application server carries to persistence of data or metadata (not a point of failure)

Conclusion: Hyperion HFM uses more current and robust technology that allow for
widespread deployment through increased scalability.

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HFM Maintenance is easier to use:

• Functions in HFM are performed in VB Script

– VBScript is an open and easy to learn logical way for finance folks to write business logic and
allocations, it is only the “wrapper” for pre-built functions

• EXAMPLE

If HS.Period.Number = 1 Then

HS.Alloc SourcePOV, DestPOV, EntityList, Factor-Expression, PlugAccount

End If

• Oracle uses PL/SQL, can the financial staff write logic like this easily when requirements change??

• EXAMPLE

OPEN c_companycode;

LOOP

FETCH c_ companycode into v_tempRecord;

IF (c_student%NOTFOUND) then

CLOSE c_ companycode;

EXIT;

END IF;

END LOOP;

Conclusion: Oracle GCS requires far more IT support for creating business rules and
application integration, but also for routine tasks such as report writing.

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Market Research:
In a recent meeting with Lee Geishecker from Gartner today, and she confirmed that there's nothing new under the
sun from Oracle, so I believe these points are still accurate. Product Management or Development would need to
check out some of the technical assertions in the like "NTLM non-standard net-bios ports", "unsigned Java Applets".

GCS (Global Consolidation System)

• Difficult set up and maintain vs. Hyperion Financial Management. GCS needs IT or specialists. Hyperion
Financial Management is built for the finance/accounting department, not IT. Do they want IT involved for each minor
change to the consolidation and reporting system?
• Difficult modeling vs. Hyperion Financial Management. GCS is Journals-based. Hyperion Financial
Management provides easy modeling of pro-forma scenarios. Do they want IT involved in creating a pro-forma income
statement or modeling acquisitions or divestitures?
• Weaknesses in Process Control vs. Hyperion Financial Management. Not easy to tell who has submitted and
who hasn’t, or if approved/rejected. How will the CFO ensure that the consolidation is properly reviewed and
approved? This is especially important because of Sarbanes Oxley.
• GCS Reporting also usually requires assistance from third parties or IT. Hyperion Financial Management
includes an easy to use report writer and several Excel interfaces. Do they want IT to be involved in creating each new
report?

GCS really only works well on an Oracle transaction system. Do they have other transaction systems? What if get
some others through acquisition? Are they ready to load up a dummy G/L company for this?

Global Intercompany System

• This is an intercompany invoicing system. Transaction–level Payables and receivables are matched. OK if all
business units share the same centralized ledger – but less useful if there are non-Oracle general ledgers. Hyperion
Financial Management provides equivalent matching capabilities across any number of general ledgers.

Financial Intelligence Portal

• Hyperion Analyzer is a superior tool – easier to set up and maintain. And it works across all Hyperion
products (Essbase, etc.)
• Finance users and executives create their own analysis and drill-down reports on-line with no assistance from
Finance or IT – “Self Service Finance”!

OFA (Oracle Financial Analyzer)

• OFA is a separate Budgeting/Planning Tool – Hyperion Financial Management is unified – so consolidation
features are available (intercompany, journals, currency, etc.)
• OFA is a “dead product” acquired from a third party with known weaknesses. Oracle is rewriting OFA from
scratch and making part of the 9i database. This will require all customers to re-write eventually.

“Aside from Discoverer (Oracle Relational Q&R Tool), Oracle’s 9i business intelligence (BI) tools
have had limited success. Their success outside Oracle’s installed base is even more limited.
We rate Oracle’s BI tools and strategy a caution.”

– Gartner – September 2002

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HFM vs. GCS Case Studies:

Company Hyperion Current Status
Contact *
Motorola Julie Madden Motorola is still rolling out HFM. They use the Oracle GL as their book of record but they
have had Hyperion since Micro-Control. A very similar story to many Hyperion clients,
success with Enterprise expanded the scope and use of the product until they overloaded it -
too much data and needed dimensionality. It was a logical progression to HFM. They felt
that Hyperion has the domain expertise when it comes to Financial applications and they
want as much out of the box functionality as they can get. They do not want to custom build
anything and they were faced with a lot of customization when they got under the hood with
Oracle. A large consideration was that Finance owns this application with minimal help from
IT to maintain the application, write reports, etc. - Using Hyperion is more 'empowering' for
the end user.

Alcoa Andy Stahl Alcoa is still rolling out HFM. They worked with to Oracle's development staff to outline their
requirements. Oracle said they Oracle would not have the same functionality as HFM 2.0
(HFM is now on release 3.4, until Oracle 12 comes out in several years. Alcoa has complex
intercompany - it's a manual process in Oracle and deferred tax eliminations were a chore.
They looked at OFA and laughed at it.

American Christine Strong American Express is rolling out HFM, after a comparison to GCS was conducted. The three
Express big factors for them were Scalability, Ease of Use, and Technology. HFM’s n-tier
architecture and web deployment was key to scalability. When it came to writing business
rules, allocations, and reports – most of HFM functionality was out of the box, whereas it
required programming effort in Oracle. Lastly, Hyperion’s technology fit their model for
security, scalability, and failover.

Campbell's Bob Stroble Rumor has it that approximately 9 months ago Oracle called together all of their big clients
Soup and told them they did not have a migration path from OFA to their new GCS platform –
everything would have to be rewritten. OFA was basically becoming extinct in Campbell
Soup's eyes and that obviously did not make them happy. IBM is currently doing an analysis
for them on how to change their business process, with the leading contender being an SAP
with HFM enterprise-wide solution, although no recommendation has been made yet.

Merrill Lynch Christine Strong Even though it’s an “Oracle Only” shop. Merrill is using Hyperion Performance Scorecard,
(Different than HFM), for some of their reporting and dashboarding needs. It is an Emperor’s
New Clothes situation where nobody will go on the record to discuss how bad Oracle is. The
folks in Corporate Finance HATE Oracle’s consolidation solution and feel it was forced down
their throats under the ‘one vendor = Oracle’ policy implemented by Alan Payne.

JPMorgan Mark Berry Alan Payne joined JPMorganChase as CIO in 2001 and quickly switched Chase to an Oracle
Chase only shop. Corporate Finance, who have a relationship with Hyperion since 1992, remarked
that GCS is still 3-4 years of development away from being the type of product that they need.
Still, the company is moving forward with GCS as a long term solution.

Monster.com Oracle ERP or general ledger clients who have implemented or are planning to implement
Mastercard HFM within the next year. GCS is not considered an option.
MBIA

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Conclusion:
As a Hyperion Gold Partner, our research may appear to portray a bias toward Hyperion and the HFM
Solution. This bias however, has also translated to market acceptance. While nearly 80% of the Fortune
500 use ERP systems such as Oracle for their transactional infrastructure, only 17% use the ERP vendor
supplied tools for analysis and reporting. This suggests a huge gap in capability and effort between the
product classes, and is something that we wish to highlight in importance.

In today’s world of Sarbane’s Oxley and IAS 2005 compliance requirements, we not only suggest – but
recommend the tool that empowers the business user most. The requirements of Oracle to perform
routine maintenance far surpass the technical abilities of the average business user. Current reporting
cycles require a flexibility and ease of use not found in the Oracle product at this time. Product offerings
from Hyperion, Cognos, and OutlookSoft clearly meet the needs of today’s business intelligence user, and
are generations ahead of their ERP or OLAP toolset equivalents.

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Notes:

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