Oracle Begins Pilot of Oracle(R) Business OnLine Hosting Service For Enterprise Applications
Subscription-Based Service to Eliminate Complexity, Reduce Start-Up Costs of Implementing Financial and ERP Software
September 23, 1998 01:29 PM
REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., Sept. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Oracle Corp. ORCL today announced that it has begun a pilot program for its Oracle(R) Business OnLine hosting service for enterprise business applications. Business OnLine will provide the full complement of Oracle Applications for financials, manufacturing, distribution and human resources on a subscription basis, hosted in a professionally managed data center.
Subscribers simply connect to the service using the same technology they use to connect to the Internet. The only software required on users' desktops is a Java-compliant Web browser and a network connection, as all components of the applications are hosted on the data center's computers. Business OnLine subscribers avoid both the initial capital expenses for hardware and software incurred by companies hosting their own applications implementations, as well as the ongoing personnel expenses for managing the deployment of these systems.
Oracle's financial, distribution and manufacturing applications will be offered initially, while other Oracle Applications components are scheduled to be added starting later in the year. The Oracle Business Intelligence System will also be available through Business OnLine, as will Oracle's other decision support tools offerings. In addition, Business OnLine will provide hosting for software solutions from ISV partners whose applications provide complementary, value-added capabilities for Oracle's customers.
Putting Enterprise Applications within the Reach of Small and Mid-Sized Organizations
Oracle Business OnLine subscribers will receive the following products and services:
* Oracle Applications software and ISV partner software
* Rapid, standardized implementations from Oracle and its service partners, utilizing preconfigured templates that provide best practices, business processes and options for various industries
* Software product support and upgrades * Data center services * Network management services * Help Desk services
Oracle Business OnLine will offer world class enterprise applications solutions at a low cost without the technical complexities of implementing, managing and supporting enterprise applications in-house. Business OnLine frees subscribing customers from having to worry about hardware and software upgrades, capacity planning, hiring of scarce IT personnel, or disaster recovery, as all such issues will be managed at the data center, transparently to customers. Subscribers will receive a flexible service that offers high availability and predictable costs, and that can be expanded with their needs.
Oracle expects Business OnLine to be attractive to organizations with as few as 20 or as many as thousands of users on the system. The initial hardware and software capital costs associated with enterprise applications, as well as the complexity and cost of managing their implementations and ongoing support, have in the past put them out of reach of most small and mid-sized companies. These companies, however, often require the same powerful software features that are only available in high-end enterprise solutions. The simplicity and low cost of entry of Business OnLine eliminate the barriers that have put enterprise applications out of reach for these companies in the past.
"Oracle Business OnLine is the best technology news in a generation for small and mid-sized businesses," said Ray Lane, president and COO, Oracle. "No longer need a company worry about having the up-front capital, the IT infrastructure, and the expensive personnel needed to undertake a complex applications implementation and keep it running over time. Now small and mid-size companies can deploy the same software solutions their larger competitors have been using against them for years, but without incurring the risks so often associated with these projects."
Oracle's Internet Computing Strategy Makes Business OnLine Possible
Oracle is the only major enterprise applications vendor whose whole product line is available as Web-enabled applications, in which 100% of the software programs reside on professionally managed servers, accessed by a client with just a Java-compatible Web browser on the desktop. This architecture, which is based entirely on the open standards of the Internet, offers huge performance advantages over client/server applications, and significantly reduces network bandwidth requirements. This performance characteristic makes it economically feasible to offer wide area access to large numbers of users, just as the Internet does. In addition, since no application software is stored at the client, all application management tasks can be performed centrally on the professionally managed server -- in the case of Oracle Business OnLine, at the Data Center. The Internet architecture of Oracle Applications is what makes applications hosting both technically possible and economically feasible.
The client/server architectures favored by other applications vendors are constrained by the high bandwidth requirements of fat client software as well as the need to administer application configurations on every users' desktop. These limitations make the prospect of scaling economically for large numbers of users on a WAN a much more difficult, if not prohibitively expensive, proposition for client/server applications vendors. In addition, these applications would require extensive maintenance for each user at the customer site that is not required for Business OnLine subscribers, making them prohibitively difficult for companies without a large IT infrastructure to deploy.
"Oracle's Business OnLine strategy is sound," said Katherine Jones, senior market analyst, Aberdeen Group. "It alleviates enterprise business application risk in the middle market and should provide a lower cost of ownership in companies with small IT staffs -- I think it's a compelling idea."
"Emerging Application Service Providers will provide small to mid-size companies more affordable access to the industry's leading applications such as those provided by Oracle. The goal of the ASP is to deliver a true business solution bringing together leading applications; secure, high performance data center operations and network support; and strong implementation and business management expertise to minimize cost and risk for applications buyers," said Clare Gillan, vice president, Applications Research, International Data Corp. "Oracle's Business OnLine means that small- to mid-size companies will have another option, emphasizing total cost of ownership, for taking of advantage of the same software their largest competitors are using."
Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems are providing hardware, infrastructure and technical services for the Oracle Data Center. In the future, Business OnLine data centers will be operated both by Oracle and by select Oracle partners.
"Oracle and Sun have a unique alliance in the area of network computing with our investments in Java and the Business OnLine relationship," said Doug Kaewert, vice president, Market Development, Sun Microsystems. "Sun understands what it takes to deliver Web-ready applications as reliably and securely as customers get dial tone today. Sun is extending its dominance in the ISP market and expanding it to the emerging Applications Service Provider (ASP) space as application outsourcing matures."
Oracle Corporation is the world's leading supplier of software for information management, and the world's second largest software company. With annual revenues of more than $7.5 billion, the company offers its database, application server, tools and application products, along with related consulting, education and support services, in more than 140 countries around the world.
For more information about Oracle, please call 650-506-7000. Oracle's World Wide Web address is (URL) oracle.com.
Trademarks
Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. Oracle Applications is a trademark of Oracle Corp. All other products or company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners.
SOURCE Oracle Corp.
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