IMS Global: You mentioned that Oracle is serving customers in 30 different countries. What differences do you see between academia in the United States and abroad?

CB: It's interesting. Even in the U.S., we hear about how unique each institution is from each other. When I talk with folks who are in our Higher Ed Users Group, they joke about this. But what I'm seeing now is a trend globally that is recognition of not where we're different, but where we're similar. We're seeing a lot of business processes out there that are tuned to support the uniqueness of an institution and are realizing there is no added value in customization, only added cost. What colleges today are saying is: `Why don't we talk to our peers and figure out how we can standardize these processes, maybe even get in a shared services mode and do other things with our vendors to drive some of these standard processes into the product so that we don't have to spend tens of thousands of dollars in unnecessary processes.'

To get back to the heart of your question about how institutions are different globally, outside of specific government, regulatory-type objectives, which are different in every country, the way education is delivered has changed largely in the area of technology. We're seeing some distinction between adult learners in the U.S. and say China or India. Other than that, it's largely business as usual. What is interesting to note is that every country has broad objectives to invest in their educational systems to make some aspect of them world class. They're striving for the ability to attract the top faculty and top students from around the globe.