The producers of Parmaigiano-Reggiano (Italian Parmesan Cheese) are planning to implant an RFID chip into skin of the cheese, in order to guarantee the customers that they have bought the real Italian cheese. The producers are facing a lot of compettion due to the fact that the production of the the is not restricted to the the provinces of Modena, Parma and Reggio Emilia and partially Bologna and Mantova only. Therefore a lot of cheese is exported under the name of Parmaigiano-Reggiano which haven’t seen Italy at all.

The Codex Alimentarius Commission, which is the highest international body on food standards and a subsidiary body of FAO and WHO, will deal these days with a proposal put forward by the U.S.A. for a “Parmesan” norm regulating generic grated cheese that has nothing to do with Parmigiano-Reggiano. If the cheese will be protected by law, then the RFID chip will still be implanted. The industry expects savings up to 50% in the production process as result of using the chip.

Source: Gabriel Kahn, The Wall Street Journal.

Oracle has released results for the fourth quarter and year ended May 31. For the quarter, Oracle reported total GAAP revenue of $3.88B, up 26% compared to the same period last year. Software revenue was $3.12B, up 24%. As expected, most of the software revenue came from strong database and middleware (primarily Oracle’s application server business) sales. These lines combined for $2.329B in revenue. Total revenue for the year came in at $11.8B (GAAP)/$12.1B (non-GAAP).

For many of us at AMR Research, the most important Oracle numbers usually involve its applications business. This became especially true once Oracle completed the PeopleSoft acquisition on December 28. When Oracle reported its third-quarter results, it could not recognize the $275M that PeopleSoft sold in October, November, and the first four weeks in December because it didn’t own the company then. As a result, we were very curious how well Oracle would do selling PeopleSoft applications in its first full quarter post-acquisition.