Oracle Corp. today hosted a global launch event with more than 150 partners and 35,000 customers in 65 countries to signal a new era that will change the economics of computing and democratize information access.
The launch served as the official introduction of Oracle8, the company`s Database for Network Computing, and hundreds of business applications, development tools and implementation services that will deliver low-cost, personalized information access around the world.
The shipment of both Oracle8, which can handle any kind of data, and inexpensive network computers from a variety of hardware vendors marks a clear shift from the PC-based client-server era to the new era of Network Computing.
Network Computing is a new model of computing that combines easy-to-use information appliances with powerful data and application servers to overcome the prohibitive cost and complexity of traditional PC networks.
"Oracles mission is to make computing universal. It will help us educate our children. It will help us to operate businesses more efficiently. It will certainly enhance our economy, and it will inevitably change our culture," said Lawrence J. Ellison, Oracle`s chairman, founder and CEO, who is credited as the visionary that sparked the move to low-cost network computing.
"Network Computing delivers a computer architecture and network infrastructure that is similar to television and telephony. What do we get? We get information appliances that are lower cost and easier to use, and we get an architecture that will deliver the Information Age."
Network computers (NCs), like those running software from Oracle subsidiary Network Computer (NCI), are a new class of affordable information appliances that operate as simply as telephones or televisions. The devices include a powerful microprocessor and offer a rich user experience.
Network computers support an array of network-based software for email communication, personal productivity, Internet information access, electronic commerce, corporate applications, games and personalized news services.
NCs or other "thin clients," such as browser-based PCs, access their information from powerful data servers such as Oracle8 and application servers that enable universal deployment and simplified management. Network computing achieves economies of scale through these powerful servers, which deliver data and applications to users efficiently and economically over professionally managed networks.
"Oracle8 will be to Network Computing what Windows was to personal computing," said Ray Lane, Oracles president and chief operating officer.
"Network Computing lowers the cost of computing infrastructure so people can then spend their money in the areas where it makes most sense, which is solving real business problems. Oracles strategic intent is nothing less than democratizing information access to enable the networked economies, networked classrooms and networked communities of the next millennium."
Today`s event, hosted here from Radio City Music Hall, was the occasion for new product and service introductions and other announcements from hundreds of major industry suppliers, including: Cisco Systems, Intel Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Digital Equipment, Compaq, Sequent, SAP, PeopleSoft, Baan, Andersen Consulting, and MCI Systemhouse.
Based on the Oracle8 data servers power, reliability and ease of management, these third-party products will lower the cost of an organizations computing infrastructure and increase overall return on technology investments.
Oracle`s database software currently stores and manages 55 percent of the world`s structured information. Oracle8 integrates new features to handle nearly 10 times as many users, manage 100 times as much of any kind of data, and reduce total cost of ownership by roughly 50 percent for most organizations.
"Network Computing is all about information, and that`s Oracle`s core business storing and delivering massive amounts of information reliably, securely and economically," said Lane. "The database has always been the most reliable and secure place to manage all your information. And now, with Oracle8`s support for any amount and type of data, many more users and lower cost of ownership, it is also the most economical place to keep all of your data."
Oracle`s World Wide Web address is http://www.oracle.com/
Share
Editorial contacts