State to upgrade payroll system

US State Department officials are putting the finishing touches on a request for proposals that will enable it to buy commercial software and systems integration services for a global payroll system, says FCW.com

Their goal is to replace two existing systems with a single one known as the Worldwide Agencywide Locally Engaged Staff system, the department said in a pre-solicitation statement published 24 June.

When the transition is complete, the new system will pay about 65 000 government employees, retirees and qualified beneficiaries in more than 180 countries.

Sage Software is partnering with nGenX to provide an outsourced hosting option to its customers for its human resource management system, Sage Abra HRMS, says TMCnet.

Under the terms of this agreement, Kansas-based nGenX will offer a virtual server environment with full-service information technology support. It will host the software on its Statement on Auditing Standards 70, Type II-certified state-of-the-art data centre.

Sage Abra users will have remote access to the software through Internet. The arrangement also eliminates the need for installation of a dedicated server by users and related activities like server maintenance, data storage and back-up, and disaster recovery.

Riding high on a strategy of targeting new markets and gobbling up other firms, Oracle reported strong results this week for its fourth quarter and full fiscal year, reports Mercury News.

The Redwood City company said its revenue climbed 24% for the quarter ending 31 May, to $7.2 billion, compared with the same quarter last year. With growth in both new software licences and service agreements, the company reported a quarterly profit of $2 billion, up 27% from the same period last year, or 39c a share. Those figures represent Oracle's first quarterly results since it completed an $8.5 billion purchase of BEA Systems at the end of April. Excluding acquisition costs and other items, the company said it earned 47c a share, beating analysts' estimates of 44c.

The BEA deal helped boost Oracle's position in the growing market for so-called middleware, or software that helps a company's various business application programs - such as payroll and inventory - interact with its database system.