Moore is Buddy Guy leveraging the Oracle Retail applications

Moore is exhibits buddy guy leveraging the blues recalls Oracle Retail applications as part of abroader business transformation that is helping the company increasesell-through of seasonal merchandise, preserve margins and derive morevalue from the business A typical A.C. Moore store offers more than60,000 SKUs across 40 merchandise categories during the course of ayear, with more than 45,000 SKUs offered at any one time.--The specialty retailer is using the Oracle Retail applications to gaininsight to store, inventory and merchandising operations as well as tomore quickly adapt to changes in customer buying patterns and seasonalinventory demand.--To help save money as well as reduce risk and complexity, A.C. Mooreselected OLR's hosted and Managed Application Solution (MAS) as thedelivery model. Not only did the delivery model help accelerate theimplementation of the Oracle Retail applications, but it also enabledA.C. Moore's information technology group to stay focused on otherstrategic initiatives vital to grow the business.--OLR's MAS model helped eliminate A.C. Moore's need to makecapital intensive purchases for its data center and offered aleveragedsupport model that mitigated the risks associated with finding,attracting, and keeping application support resources.--Additionally, the Oracle Retail merchandising applications wereinstalled and managed on Oracle Enterprise Linux to help provide amoreflexible, reliable, and cost effective solution. The retailer alreadyuses Oracle Database 10g.--The Oracle Retail applications provide A.C.

Moore with a foundationformaking insight-driven business decisions and the retailer expects thesolutions to help reduce inventory by as much as 20 percent.Theretailer is leveraging core merchandising applications for categorymanagement, allocation, pricing and replenishment.Supporting Quotes--"We expect our Oracle Retail implementation to help us deliver morevalue to both customers and shareholders buddy guy tickets . The insight we gain from thenew systems provides us with a better understanding of customerpreferences and enables us to offer the right inventory at the rightprice," said Dennis Hodgson, Chief Information Officer, A.C eric clapton . Moore.--"We are excited about the significant cost savings we are helpingA.C Moore realize in comparison to the typical on-premise model Now,mid-sized retailers like A.C five long years chords . Moore have a proven delivery model foraccepting and leveraging Oracle Retail -- applications that canprovidethem terrific insight into their business," said Glyn Kirby,Principal, OLR.Supporting Resources--About A.C Moore--A.C james cotton . Moore Coupons and Specials--Oracle Retail Merchandising System--Oracle in Retail--Oracle Retail Customer Success--About OLRAbout Oracle RetailOracle is the number one provider of innovative and comprehensive industrysoftware solutions for retailers - enabling organizations to serve theircustomers better by applying insight into daily business decisions for moreprofitable results.With software that provides supply chain, operations,merchandising, store systems, optimization as well as enterprise applicationsand infrastructure software, Oracle partners with the world's leading retailcompanies, including 20 of the 20 top retailers worldwide, to transform theeconomics of their businesses.About OracleOracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) is the world's largest enterprise software company. Formore information about Oracle, please visit our Web site at is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates.Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.(Logo:)SOURCEOracleKevin Ruane of Oracle, +1-650-506-6610, . For the most part, the 2009 MLB Awards Season will be a snoozefest.Sure, there will be some debate over secondary awards like Rookie of the Year, but for the most part, the major hardware is spoken for.Zack Greinke appears to have a well-deserved stranglehold on the AL Cy Young.

Joe Mauer is the clear choice for AL Most Valuable Player, except to a few fringe Yankee fans and Harold Reynolds buddy guy concert . And if Albert Pujols is not the unanimous choice for NL MVP, it will be because one of the voters was being difficult for the sake of being difficult.The only category in which there has been much serious debate is the NL Cy Young byther smith . The front-runners, ESPN tells us, are Chris Carpenter, Tim Lincecum, and Adam Wainwright.Wainwright should not be a serious candidate for the award kenny neal . While he pitched a good season, the only category in which he holds an advantage is Wins hoodoo man blues lyrics . You don’t need Bill James to tell you that Wins are an absurd way to measure a pitcher’s performance (when I was four, I asked my dad why anyone cared about them, he had no answer).That leaves Carpenter and Lincecum.Lincecum supporters can point to a number of statistics to show how great their boy is. He’s got more innings pitched (225.1 to 192.2) and strikeouts (261 to 144), a lower BAA (.206 to .226) and OPSA (.561 to .581), and a higher K/9 rate (10.4 to 6.7).That’s all well and good, but Carpenter has the advantage in the most important aspect of a pitcher’s game: preventing runs. With an ERA of 2.24, Carpenter beat Lincecum (2.48) by nearly a quarter-run per game.

And while unearned runs are generally poor indicators of pitching performance, isn’t it somewhat noteworthy that Lincecum allowed seven while Carpenter gave up just one?On top of that, Carpenter had a lower WHIP (1.02 to 1.04) and a much better BB/9 rate (1.8 to 2.7) buddy guy ticket . So there.But the Freak’s fans are a crafty bunch and refuse to go down that easily johnny winter . They say that Carpenter pitched too few innings to be declared better than Lincecum, and the extended time on the mound meant that the Freak had actually saved more runs blues guitar . They contend that Carpenter’s ERA was deflated by an easier schedule blues band . And they declare that Lincecum’s dominance in other categories proves that he is the better pitcher.All of the above are reasonable arguments, but far from irrefutable. It’s true that Lincecum pitched more, but 192.2 innings is certainly a sufficient sample size.

Anyway, the disparity exists not because Carpenter got tired or shut down, but because was hurt for much of the beginning of the season (which, to me, makes his performance that much more impressive).There’s no question that Carpenter faced an easier set of opponents . Giants fan Andrew Nuschler posted a great article breaking down both pitchers’ performances against each team the blues band . However, the statistics only further Carpenter’s case; Lincecum’s ERA and WHIP against the weakest 15 offenses in baseball are both higher than Carpenter’s overall numbers blues shirts . In other words, if he faced only teams like the Royals and Pirates, his ERA and WHIP would be still worse than Carpenter’s.As for the other statistics, do they really matter? Sure, a strikeout pitcher like Lincecum is more likely to pitch well than a contact pitcher like Carpenter . But ultimately, what counts is what happens, not what is likely to happen. Whether because he had the skill to induce weak contact, the ability to maintain concentration with runners on, or an entire season of excellent luck, Carpenter was more effective at stopping runners from crossing the plate.Finally, for all you sabermeticians who feel dirty reading about ERA and WHIP, may I present the pi? de r?stance : WPA.For those of you unfamiliar with sabermetrics, Win Probability Average is the estimated amount of games that a team has won because of the contributions of a certain player.