IT major Oracle (News - Alert) announced that Eesti Energia, an Estonian energy company, has begun to use Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing, as well as Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management.

The energy company has gone live with Oracle billing and meter data management solutions in anticipation of a deregulated market that is expected to begin in 2013.

 Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing enables the utility industry to bring new products and services to market. The new solutions will assist the company to reduce delivery time from months to weeks, company officials said. 

“Due to the soon-to-be deregulated energy market, it was crucial to have scalable and robust systems that enable flexibility and competitive advantage,” said Margus Simson, head of business systems department, Estonia, Eesti Energia, in a statement. “With Oracle Utilities, we are now able to meet the standards and requirements of a free-energy market, which our previous systems were unable to support.”

Integrated with Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing, the Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management application provides a meter-to-cash process that supports both current meter and smart meter deployments.

“Oracle offers core operational solutions built by industry veterans for industry customers. We have a strategic and dedicated industry focus to deliver domain expertise,” said Mark Hurd (News - Alert), president of Oracle, in a statement. “Oracle's leadership in 22 key industries is a direct result of our ability to deliver products that solve industry-specific business problems.”

As part of strengthening its focus on utilities business, Oracle has named Rodger E. Smith senior vice president and general manager for the Oracle Tax and Utilities Global Business Unit.

Recently, media reports said that Oracle it will hire over 1,700 employees in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region. In addition, Oracle is projecting $11.5 billion in revenue from the EMEA region during 2011, which would be a 30 percent increase from 2010.

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