Oracle has announced general availability of its Universal Records Management 10g Release 3, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware. The release includes new features for mitigating the cost and risk associated with legal discovery and new adapters for out-of-the-box integration with Oracle and third-party applications.

Oracle Universal Records Management 10g Release 3 is a comprehensive, hot-pluggable records management platform that helps organizations automate records management across any content repository. It is the first records management product released by Oracle since the acquisition of Stellent in December 2006 and continues the company's delivery on the content management roadmap it laid out in April 2007. Using Oracle Records Management 10g Release 3, organizations can manage file plans, retention policies, dispositions, holds and discovery information across heterogeneous applications from a single, centralized console application.

As the cost and risk associated with the legal discovery process continues to escalate, electronic discovery is becoming a larger concern for businesses of all sizes. To help simplify and reduce the cost of e-discovery, Oracle Universal Records Management 10g Release 3 includes a dedicated use license for Oracle Secure Enterprise Search and new functionality to help apply centralized records and retention policies, as well as legal and audit holds across all repositories in the organization. The result is a more consistent, legally defensible set of policies; increased efficiency; and increased assurance that legal holds are applied promptly and universally. Oracle Universal Records Management 10g Release 3 also provides strong retention management features for non-records, which is critical in handling the broad range of electronic information that has been deemed admissible in litigation. Therefore, it is important for organizations to have a clear retention policy for non-records information as well.

Using Oracle Secure Enterprise Search in conjunction with Oracle Universal Records Management 10g Release 3 helps put role-appropriate information at users' fingertips while maintaining strict adherence to information security policies. In addition, it enables users to quickly access content in diverse repositories to better understand what information they possess and what evidence is available, which can help them avoid or settle legal disputes without litigation.

"Organizations realize that all content is potentially discoverable, but they have not figured out how to manage that content effectively to reduce the cost and risk associated with the discovery process," said Frank Radichel, vice president, software development, Oracle. "By providing enterprise-wide records and retention management, Oracle is strengthening its position as the information company, enabling organizations to set policies on what content to keep and what content to dispose of automatically and in a way that is defensible in court."

Oracle Universal Records Management 10g Release 3 provides a hot-pluggable records management platform that can be easily deployed within a heterogeneous IT environment. The new release includes adapters to Oracle Universal Content Management and Oracle Imaging and Process Management, as well as a generic adapter that can be applied to most repositories. These new adapters can help easily and seamlessly integrate information from a broad range of enterprise applications into existing records management systems, which helps enable organizations to realize the benefits of records management without changing the way its employees work. Instead of requiring users to invoke a separate records management application, Oracle Universal Records Management can enforce records management policies while users continue to interact with their familiar content management and productivity tools such as email, spreadsheets and word processing applications.