Web Design Directory

  w   w   w   .   d   e   s   i   g   n   d   i   r   .   n   e   t
An industry leading web design, hosting and development directory. We bring together the best web designers and their customers. Find the lates website business news and updates.
Search DesingnDIR
Advertising | Submit Site »
   » Home Page / Industry News  
  Find Services Provider       Technology Stories        WebSite Services   
New Oracle Collab Suite Takes Aim At SharePoint

2005-08-22 09:56:00

Oracle on Monday shipped its long-promised collaboration suite update. The company also outlined new positioning for the suite, which it said will take on Microsoft Sharepoint directly. Traditionally, OCS has been compared to Microsoft Exchange Server and IBM e-mail offerings.

The new 10g suite includes enhanced content management capability targeted not just at experts, but rank-and-file users, said Bob Shimp, vice president of technology marketing for Oracle, Redwood Shores, Calif.

That module, called Content Services 10g, is the successor to the existing Oracle Files subsystem, and is now scalable to "hundreds of thousands" of users, Shimp said.

Also included are promised instant-messaging/presence awareness capabilities, based on Jabber technology but significantly enhanced for secure, archivable, enterprise use. Oracle had promised IM/presence capabilities for the current release, but pulled them back.

Oracle Workspaces, a universal user interface for all the collaboration services, is also new. It provides a consistent point of access and GUI to content management, threaded discussions, instant messaging, Web conferencing and contact/calendar management, he said.

Users can buy the whole schmear for $60 per named user perpetual license or each component for $45 per named user per module, Shimp said. The suite includes runtimes to all the Oracle database, middleware and management tools needed, showing that Oracle hopes to win new customers and not just cater to existing Oracle database shops. Maintenance and support will cost the usual 22 percent of software license cost per year.

Shimp said the combination of Workspaces and Content Services will enable Oracle to attack Microsoft SharePoint, installations of which Shimp acknowledges have "sprung up like weeds."

While popular for ad hoc work groups within firewalls, SharePoint "was never designed for enterprise content management and caused huge headaches for customers who want to get rid of fragmented data," Shimp said. Even Microsoft partisans admit that SharePoint implementations across firewalls and geographies are problematic to deploy and maintain. Many point to that being the main reason behind Microsoft's decision to buy Groove Networks last year.

At its partner conference last month, a Microsoft executive finally conceded publicly that the company is moving to integrate SharePoint Portal Server and Content Management Server capabilities to address developer and user concerns.

The new content management services include some of the technology Oracle bought from Context Media earlier this month. "That content integration technology will enable us to tie in well with high-end content management systems from Documentum and others as well as offer an excellent migration path," Shimp said.

Shimp acknowledged that the suite has been delayed. Last December, Oracle co-president Charles Phillips promised the already-delayed product by March of 2005. Shimp said the company held things up for a large beta program and to add features and ensure quality.

Oracle partner Scott Jenkins, CEO of The EBS Group, Lenexa, Kan., said the combination of secure features and low cost is winning first looks and even some early migrations from both IBM Notes/Domino and Microsoft Exchange Server.

EBS is helping move Dallas-Fort Worth Airport from Exchange Server to the Oracle offering, for example. "For Lotus it's close to $80 per user per year for e-mail and calendaring from Lotus, and Oracle at the end of the day is cheaper than Exchange given per seat charges, CALs and other considerations," Jenkins said. He said the airport was not a large Oracle database shop, but was trying to rein in various data silos that had proliferated.

The DFW staff will use Oracle's IM, presence and real-time conferencing to hold meetings without having to drive all over the airport, which Jenkins characterized as "a city onto itself."

Jenkins, who has been working with the beta for some time, said it also features the enterprise search capability that Oracle previewed—without much information on deliverables—at Oracle Openworld late last year. "That's a great feature. It searches your IM threads, your E-mail, discussion group threads, files and pulls it all together," he said.

With its aggressive pricing, Oracle is countering its image as a high-cost software supplier, observers said. "When you're late to market you have to be very compelling," said another Oracle partner requesting anonymity.

IBM/Lotus is pitching its Workplace as an inexpensive mail and calendaring offering at $29 per user per month. In three-year deals serving 1,000 users or more, the cost can fall to $1 per user per month.

Motorola's iTunes Phone Details Emerge
Even as the FCC has reportedly approved Motorola's much-discussed iTunes cell phone, details emerged this week about the device.
AOL To Pay $1.25 Million To Settle Probe Of Customer Complaints
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- America Online Inc., the world's largest Internet service provider, will pay $1.25 million in penalties and costs and reform some of its customer service practices to settle an investigation by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office.
Skype Opens VoIP, IM Platforms
Close on the heels of Google's announcement that it will offer VoIP and instant messaging services, Skype Technologies, the VoIP leader, announced that it will open its VoIP and IM platform to online communities and developers.
U.S. Nets Reportedly Attacked Via Chinese Web Sites
WASHINGTON — U.S. government networks are being targeted by hackers via Chinese Web sites, according to a report Thursday (Aug. 25) in the Washington Post.
Analyzing IE At 10: Integration With OS Smart Or Not?
This week marks not only the tenth anniversary of the release of Windows 95, but also the same landmark for Microsoft's browser, Internet Explorer, software that's been, by turns, an underdog, the root of the government's antitrust trial, and the cause of more security problems than any other single component of the operating system.
Report: Vonage Planning IPO
Wall Street Journal quotes source saying company seeks to raise $600 million in public offering.
Researcher Says VoIP Promises Are Overhyped
Voice over IP (VoIP) is poised to reshape telecommunications, but not just yet, writes Forrester Research analyst Maribel Lopez in a new report. For now, VoIP hype has far surpassed both consumer adoption rates and interest, and it will take some creative thinking from providers to overcome the gap.
Zotob May Be Modified To Attack Windows XP
The current crop of Zotob bot worms could be modified without much trouble to attack PCs running Windows XP and XP SP1, said a Symantec executive Thursday.
Mobile-Phone Sales Soar In Second Quarter
Worldwide mobile-phone sales reached 190.5 million units in the second quarter, with Nokia and Motorola accounting for nearly half of the market, a research firm said Thursday.
Online Music Subscriptions Too Pricey
Online music subscriptions will have to drop below $10 a month in order to attract a significantly larger number of consumers worldwide, a research firm said Thursday.


   
» Web Hosting Interviews
Web Hosting interviews, news and reviews. Compare the Best web hosting providers.
» Daw - Web Hosting Blog
Views and Comments about Hosting Industry. News, Trends, Products and Sevices.
» Your WebSite Here
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371


» Submit your site to Web Design Directory

About Us | Advertising | Privacy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

© DesignDIR.net 2003 - 2017, part of of Business Address Network. All Rights Reserved!