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November 13, 1998

Oracle revealed more details of its forthcoming application rental service and put the finishing touches to its database-centred Internet platform strategy at the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco on Tuesday (Nov 10th).

The final, formal launch of its new flagship database, Oracle8i - which has already had several previous unveilings - included the first announcement of the "On Oracle" deployment suite, packaged to attract third-party application developers. Available on per-user licensing agreements, the "On Oracle" suite bundles Oracle8i with Oracle Application Server and Oracle Developer Server and allows developers to build internet-based applications for sale or rental.

At the same time, Oracle revealed the price range it has in mind for its Business Online application rental service. It plans to charge $395 to $895 per user per month for hosting applications, while email will be an extra $10 per user per month. The service will debut in January with Oracle applications. June 1999 has been set as the start date when partner ISVs will be able to join the lineup.

"On Oracle" was one of three new Internet platform suites which Oracle announced on Tuesday, all intended to position the new database at the core of an Oracle-designed 'Internet computing platform' alongside its application server and development tools. The other two were an updated version of the Enterprise Developer Suite and the JDeveloper Suite, which will include the production version of Oracle's new Java development tool JDeveloper 2.0.

Several of Oracle8i's new features add substance to its Internet computing vision: A resident Java VM (virtual machine) which allows Java programs to execute and be stored on the database server. Support for Oracle WebDB, a self-service, Web-accessed application builder which allows users to build and manage database-driven Web pages and sites online. The Internet File System (iFS) which enables storage of any file type or document directly in the database, including Microsoft Office files, Web pages and images. To drive home the Internet-ready message, Oracle8i ships with client software from popular multimedia Web vendors such as RealNetworks, Macromedia and LivePicture.

Oracle also this week (Nov 11th) announced support across its server range for eXtensible Markup Language (XML), the new cross-platform data language rapidly emerging as a potential new standard format for Web-based information sharing. Oracle8i will ship with XML support, while the application server will add support for XML in the first half of 1999. Oracle WebDB should follow suit in the second half of the year.

Oracle confirmed various features which speed performance of the Oracle8i database, particularly in data warehousing applications. Security is enhanced too, with finer-grained control of access by external Internet users and servers. Oracle8i and the Internet platform suites are due to ship by the year end.

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