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Technology Stocks : Oracle Corporation (ORCL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: OmertaSoldier who wrote (12498)	11/16/1999 11:44:00 PM
From: OmertaSoldier	Respond to of 19080

Oracle CEO sees simpler PCs ahead By Deborah Adamson, CBS MarketWatch Last Update: 10:24 PM ET Nov 16, 1999 NewsWatch LOS ANGELES (CBS.MW) ? Oracle?s chief executive on Tuesday said simpler and less expensive computers are the future, showing off a new version of his network computer that embodies those two characteristics. Addressing a crowd at the Oracle Open World, a conference put together by the company (ORCL: news, msgs) every year for users and developers of its products, Larry Ellison waxed eloquent about the future of computers that will simplify the desktop. Blasting Microsoft (MSFT: news, msgs) founder Bill Gates, whom Ellison said called his network computer a "stupid" idea years ago, the Oracle executive noted that the software giant nevertheless unveiled its own network computer at Comdex on Monday. At $199, Ellison?s network computer is a simplified form of PC. It boots on a CD-ROM, borrowing from the style of Nintendo. He believes that a simple and inexpensive appliance such as this would eventually grab market share away from personal computers, much like PCs took thunder away from mainframes decades ago. "Anything you can do with a PC on the Internet you can do with an NC on the ?Net," Ellison said. Indeed, the computing trend is moving towards simpler and less expensive devices, he said. Delivering more powerful and complex PCs, which Ellison contends is a central strategy of Microsoft?s, is a "dreadful mistake." Internet computing is the key, Ellison said. Users only need a web browser to access data and applications, which aren?t stored on desktop computers but on servers. This opens the market to simpler computers. Ellison also waxed eloquent about Oracle?s continuing aggression into the business applications business. He said the company is the only one that offers the technology tying together the front-end and back-end functions of a business for deployment over the Internet. Others offer a piece here and there for companies to cobble together. Front-end includes customer relations management and back-end are personnel, accounting, manufacturing, inventory and other functions. "We?re trying to build an e-business suite," he said. "We have all the pieces." Ellison stood by a comment he made four years ago that by 2000 there will be more non-PC devices accessing the Internet than personal computers. He believes his estimate still is on track since there?s a trend of moving Internet access onto wireless devices such as cell phones. Ellison noted that cell phones outnumber PCs three-to-one. Oracle?s Portal-to-Go program re-formats the web site to show data properly over a wireless appliance. "The Internet changes everything," Ellison said. "The only things that remain to be understood is how and when."