Oracle To Rekindle Collaboration Fire To Take On Microsoft, IBM

At Oracle World, the company plans to talk up the price and feature benefits it says its recently shipped Collaboration Suite will offer vs. e-mail market leaders Microsoft Exchange and IBM's Lotus Domino.

The current version of Collaboration Suite--which melds e-mail, calendaring, voice mail and unified search atop the Oracle 9i database and application server infrastructure--shipped last month. Oracle is working to add more realtime capabilities over time, said Rene Bonvanie, vice president of Oracle 9i marketing.

Although Oracle has a spotty track record in e-mail, some observers say huge infrastructure changes under way in both Exchange and Domino could open up opportunities for other players. Both Lotus and Microsoft have said they will swap out their underlying message stores for technology based on their respective relational databases.

"Microsoft and IBM have told users that within two years they have to become [database administrators. The question then is, do you want to become a database expert? And if so, you should go with Oracle, the most reliable [database company," Bonvanie said.

Just last year, Microsoft reps scoffed at Oracle Chairman and CEO Larry Ellison's contention that his company's database was better suited to support virus- and problem-free e-mail than data stores developed specifically for mail servers. Within a year, Microsoft had adjusted its message to sound remarkably like Ellison's. Oracle also hopes to build on disaffection caused by licensing changes Microsoft inaugurated last summer that many users see as price hikes.

Bonvanie acknowledged that past Oracle e-mail efforts, notably the ill-fated Oracle Office, failed because of the company's focus on providing its own client software. "The big change is, in the past, we believed people cared about clients, so we built the infrastructure with the idea that we could put in a client to do document publishing and sharing, e-mail, etc.," he said. "We've abandoned that idea ... we don't care what IMAP or POP 3 client you have. You can keep Outlook."

The Microsoft Outlook client is popular both among business users and consumers that want to retain the way they work with their folders and calendars.

Lotus and Microsoft have said that their planned back-end changes will not disrupt users.

With the Collaboration Suite, along with the 11i enterprise applications and 9i application server, Oracle is trying to extend its business beyond its bread-and-butter database franchise.

So far, however, the company has had underwhelming success, analysts said.

Bonvanie said the price of $60 per user for the Collaboration Suite is roughly one-third the cost of Microsoft Exchange Server, even figuring in volume discounts. Oracle partners also can offer migration services, he said.

Because Oracle does not offer hardware, solution providers will be able to integrate servers, PBX switches and other hardware with its collaboration software, Bonvanie added.

Marc Hebert, executive vice president of Sierra Atlanta, an Oracle integration partner in Fremont, Calif., said he is bullish on the opportunities the Collaboration Suite could open up. "We haven't seen a ton of traction with it yet, but I think it will pick up. The marketing hasn't really kicked in yet. We're excited about it," he said.

Along with the push behind Collaboration Suite, Oracle is revamping its channel program, segmenting partners along product lines and tiering ISV, integrator and VAR partners with programs specific to them, an executive told CRN last week. (See related story.)

The company is stepping up recruitment of regional integrators to bolster its efforts in the midmarket, said Julie Tung, vice president of global alliances and channels at Oracle. A new Accelerator Level designation will give targeted partners the benefits of certification without having to meet the membership criteria for a year, Tung said.

Also on tap are an array of benefits for partners assisting in customer migration to Oracle technology. A new online migration tool, iMigrate, will help partners estimate the effort and resources required for a given migration project, she said.

Rich Niemiec, president of the International Oracle Users Group and CEO of TUSC, a Lombard, Ill.-based Oracle partner, said he welcomed the changes and the migration tool. Many companies are "consolidating their systems, and [there is a lot of demand for Informix to Oracle and SQL Server to Oracle migrations," he said.

Niemiec also lauded Oracle's new "You Pass, We Pay" program in which the vendor will finance certification tests for partner personnel. That program can save partners somewhere between $2,000 and $4,000 on certification, he said.

Sheldon Arora, president of esoftsolutions, a Dallas-based partner, also praised Oracle's free training and education. "I don't know of anyone who doesn't want additional training, and [by making that available via the Internet ... we can provide it to our employees and it doesn't cost me."