News

Oracle CX Unity Connects and Shares Customer Data But Don’t Call It a CDP

When is a CDP not a CDP? When it’s offered by a big marketing cloud vendor, of course. Oracle is the latest to launch an un-CDP, which it calls Oracle CX Unity. Like a you-know-what, it combines customer data from all sources into a unified profile that’s available to other applications. Oracle argues it’s not a CDP because it uses artificial intelligence to recommend customer treatments. Plenty of CDPs do that, although it’s not in the core definition. On the other hand, it’s not clear whether the Oracle product meets the real CDP requirement of creating a persistent data store: they describe CX Unity as connecting data “in context, in motion, and in real time”, which may suggest a virtual view, and their blog post criticizes CDPs as “’data storage’ centric”. But a spokesperson told the Light Reading newsletter that Salesforce’s Customer 360 “does not bring together a unified customer profile” because it “isn’t replicating data, but pulling it from where it resides, leaving data in place and the system where it originated”.  This implies that Oracle takes the opposite approach.

More News

Next Article

RedPoint Global Adds Improvements Across the Board

October 24, 2018

CDP vendor RedPoint Global has launched the next generation of its Customer Engagement Hub. Enhancements cover identity resolution, machine learning, and access to customer profiles by touchpoint systems. Most intriguing from a technical standpoint is the ability to use NoSQL databases including MongoDB and Cosmos as the primary data stores, avoiding SQL entirely if you’re so inclined. And who isn’t?

CDPI Newsletter
Previous Article

NCR Uses Self-Checkout Camera to Verify Buyers’ Age

October 22, 2018

Founded in 1884, point-of-sale tech giant NCR is as far from screwy as you can get. But they’re also using cameras, in this case to verify a buyer’s age when purchasing age-restricted products at self-checkout. Yes, a built-in camera guesses your age. No, I’m not making this up. A less fraught alternative within the same system lets people register their identity in advance and then uses the camera to verify who they are using a QR code and biometrics.

CDPI Newsletter
Featured Article

Martech Spending Grows as Percentage of Marketing Budget: CMO Survey

April 26, 2024

Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.

CDPI Newsletter