InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
October 12, 1998
Oracle Bets On The Net
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Oracle counters that Oracle8i is more scalable, reliable, and feature-rich than SQL Server 7.0. And Oracle will add a new feature to its database called the Internet File System (IFS) that lets users drag and drop data from Windows-based apps into the database, where it can be indexed, managed, and queried. "You can do a distributed query that spans E-mail, text files, PowerPoint, and your data warehouse," says Gary Bloom, Oracle executive VP of system products.
Oracle officials argue that it makes more sense to store PC data in IFS than in the Windows NT file system because it can be backed up and managed on central servers. "We think this is a really big deal," says Ellison, a fierce critic of Microsoft's NT strategy. "Microsoft is going after our database business. Well, we're going after their file system business."
The new features in Oracle8i are of interest to Steven Brazile, VP of business systems with the Earthgrains Co., a baking products company in St. Louis. Oracle8i's support for Java would give Earthgrains more flexibility because apps can be written in Java and deployed on any kind of client, while IFS offers a promising new way to manage data, Brazile says. Earthgrains runs ERP applications from SAP and ADP on Oracle's popular Oracle7.3 database. The company hasn't had a compelling reason to upgrade to Oracle8.0, which was released last year. But Oracle8i may provide such an incentive, Brazile says.
Oracle is also trying to revive its collaborative computing strategy. The company will ship Oracle Internet Messaging, a revision of its InterOffice E-mail and groupware package, by year's end. Oracle, which has revised InterOffice before without much success, is now aiming the product at Internet and other telecom service providers, which are gearing up to offer hosted messaging over the Internet. The service providers need E-mail servers that use standard Internet protocols and can handle millions of users. Software.com, Netscape, and Sun Microsystems already offer such servers and boast dozens of ISP and telephone company customers.
Oracle hopes to impress the service providers with the scalability of its messaging server, which uses Oracle's database as its message store and can support tens of thousands of users on a single machine. The server uses SMTP to transport messages, rather than relying on Oracle's proprietary database replication as in previous versions.
Oracle is also wooing service providers with Oracle Unified Messaging, a platform for hosting messaging services on the Internet. The system, which combines a universal in-box with Oracle Internet Messaging, can be used to send and receive E-mail, voice mail, and faxes. Oracle says several telcos will unveil services based on the platform by year's end.
Gone, however, is Oracle's InterOffice client. Oracle will recommend that users access its messaging server with any Internet E-mail client, including Qualcomm's Eudora, Netscape Messenger, Microsoft Outlook, and Lotus Notes. "Oracle has never really been in the client market," says senior VP Jarvis. "Doing the InterOffice client was in many ways a mistake."
With all its talk about Internet computing, it would seem that Oracle would be a major force in electronic commerce. It's not. Although Oracle's database is widely used to back up large Web sites, other elements of its E-commerce software line-including its Application Server, Internet Commerce Server, and database add-ons-apparently aren't.
Here, too, Oracle executives say a product upgrade-Application Server 4.0, released in August-will prompt IT managers to reconsider.Oracle is also developing electronic bill presentment and payment software that will run on top of Application Server. The modules, to be released in coming months, will let banks and billers present invoices on the Internet. John Fomook, Oracle's director of Internet server marketing, says Citibank is among the companies collaborating with Oracle on the effort.
First-quarter sales of Application Server surpassed the $28 million it brought in during all of 1997, Fomook says. One reason for the boost, he says, was the consolidation of the database and application server sales forces into one retrained unit.
AlliedSignal and Xerox are among the companies using Application Server for E-commerce, but Oracle has yet to rack up a list of big-league customers. One reason might be that the server is tightly tied to Oracle's database, which presents a problem for companies running non-Oracle databases. The key challenge for Oracle "is establishing themselves apart from the applications and database with enough openness to be acceptable to everyone," says Aberdeen analyst David Alschuler.
With virtually all of the pieces in place or soon to be delivered, the validity of Oracle's Internet strategy is about to be put to the test. Ellison knows what's at stake. "If the Internet turns out not to be the future of computing, we're toast," he says. "But if it is, we're golden."
--with additional reporting by Tom Stein, Justin Hibbard, Gregory Dalton, and Jeff Sweat
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