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

To: Brian Moore who wrote (8656)	10/13/1998 4:48:00 PM
From: Punko	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 19080

managed by a staff of about 15 people, is based on 20 Intel/Windows NT servers from Dell...company has spent 'tens of millions' of dollars on the site. Wow. This shows that NT/Intel is not synonymous with value. Compare that to what Sandia (or was it Livermore) was able to do with Linux and a few strung-together PII's...the 300th or so fastest supercomputer on the planet for just a few $100K. Regardless of the perceived value of NT/Intel, one big plus for os-independent companies such as Oracle will be the rise of alternative platforms like Linux. Oracle just announced the shipping of production O8i and Oracle Apps Server on Linux, and the apps are not far behind. As alternatives to NT spread, the market has to concern itself about the fact that sql server only runs on nt. Enterprise customers, if they want to protect their business against the whims of a single IT "partner" (if one can call MS that! :)) must seriously consider alternatives to Msft products. Given all the recent press and analyst coverage, Linux is gaining momentum as such an alternative. And Oracle's greater adherance to open standards and lack of commitment to any one os is much more in line with the principle of technological entropy than Microsoft's proprietary NT everywhere vision. As for the middle market, where up-front costs matter most, Linux has a strong selling point. It does suffer from usability issues, but it scales better, performs better, goes longer without a re-boot, and costs less. As more apps such as Oracle's are made available, it'll continue to gain credibility. It's already recognized as a leading platform for small to midsized internet-based businesses, and tomorrow's IT purchasing decision makers, which can't currently afford an NT license, are growing up with it in colleges.