Software giant Oracle recently announced, at AppsWorld in New Orleans, its strategy to expand the company`s online services business under the new brand name, Oracle.com.
Oracle.com is a website that provides a software-as-services platform to enable companies to run their business entirely on the Internet. With Oracle.com, business users have a single entry point into Oracle`s E-Business Suite of business applications, with personalisation features that uniquely customise a user`s Oracle home page with their essential business applications, services and information.
Marc Gower, Marketing Director of Oracle South Africa, points out the unique aspects of this development. "Although Oracle has been firmly established in the online services area for some time, the new initiative is aimed at ensuring that Oracle.com becomes the primary Internet resource for business services, information - and the software applications that companies need to stay ahead of the pack.
"Locally, we are beginning to see the first signs of the trend towards an ASP (application service provider) model which enables users of any size - from individual, through home office and SME and on to enterprise scale - to access the software they need via Internet hosting, rather than outright purchase. The services in Oracle`s E-Business Suite, available via the Oracle.com portal, are an extensive online resource which we are developing continuously to keep up with market needs."
Oracle.com creates a destination to access all Oracle online services and also provides delivery of customised business content from the world`s leading business information sources, including The Financial Times, The Economist, The New York Times, NASDAQ, Business Week, and more than 30 other global news and information services.
Why is this move to online services important?
Business applications, like those that Oracle provides to businesses worldwide today, are rapidly moving online. During the next decade - and with much of this development happening in the next couple of years - the majority of businesses will access the applications they use via the Internet as online services.
Oracle already has a lead in this space, delivering many of the industry`s first online applications and the company continues to roll out other products and services at a rapid pace. All these applications will be accessed through Oracle.com.
"Oracle.com is the cornerstone for the future online business place," says Gower. "It provides a single location to easily access all the tools necessary for any individual or company to do their work effectively - as well as access the business information needed for informed decisions."
What happened to my.oracle.com?
My.oracle.com is still the URL address for Oracle.com`s personalised home pages for site users. These pages can be reached by clicking on the "Personalize" button from the Oracle.com home page or by entering the URL itself. Oracle.com is Oracle`s brand for all online services, including the site`s personalisation capabilities, and will be marketed under that name.
What does this announcement mean for Oracle`s online services?
Oracle.com unifies all current and future Oracle online services under one umbrella, giving Oracle users a single place to access all of Oracle`s online software services, all of Oracle`s traditional products and services, all of Oracle`s online communities, and all of the business content anyone would need to do their job, including both Oracle-related as well as role-specific business content.
Is Oracle unique in creating this portal?
While there are numerous Internet portals and online application providers, no one else in the industry has undertaken the scope of what Oracle is doing to combine both integrated business applications and business content in one place. Oracle`s early move to Internet-enabled applications allows the company to do what our traditional competitors cannot. This also enables Oracle to assume the leadership role in the online services space.
Gower explains as follows. "It is part of Oracle`s philosophy to provide complete solutions, rather than piecing together diverse applications. The Oracle.com site gives the user everything needed for this type of complete, integrated solution. It combines the application tools and the business information services all in a single. Easily accessed space."
How will Oracle.com continue to evolve?
As more and more new services come online, these will join existing online services creating a stable of online software services that are fully integrated and easily accessed from a single location. This expansion of the service is happening very rapidly.
"Additionally, the portlet library of Oracle and business content is growing daily, adding on average two new portlets per day," says Gower. Portlets are convenient, customised links to applications or data on other sites which a user can load on their personalised home page. "This pace will increase as more and more portlets are added to include news and information sources from around the world provided by country, industry, and role-related organisations."
How can I use the new features of Oracle.com today?
To create your own personal account on Oracle.com, simply go to www.oracle.com and select the "Personalize" button in the left-hand corner. If you don`t already have an Oracle.com account, you can sign up for an account at login. Upon logging on, you can customise your view of Oracle.com to see only the news, information, and tools that you wish to see. Best of all, Oracle.com membership is free.
"For local users - and for any size of business - the Oracle.com initiative allows insight into the expanding world of online services," says Gower. "Although Oracle already has a strong presence in this area, as demonstrated at KPMG`s Internet Information Centre, Oracle.com offers access into the most integrated resources available anywhere on the Web."
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