By John Geralds, VNU
Net
Database giant Oracle has upped the ante in the Linux
applications battle by unveiling its first enterprise-level
application server for the open source software.
The company has also announced expanded marketing schemes with
Linux distributors Caldera, SuSE and VA Linux which include joint
advertising campaigns.
A Linux version of Oracle Internet Application Server is now
available for download from its developer site, Oracle Technology
Network. Although the product can be downloaded free, deployment
will require a licence fee of $5 for each universal power unit
(UPU) for the standard edition, and $30 per UPU for the enterprise
version.
Oracle also began shipping the wireless edition of its
Application Server for Linux at $150 per UPU and $95 per user.
Application Server includes customer relationship management, order
management, financials, human resources, manufacturing,
procurement, projects and supply chain modules.
The Java-based Oracle Internet Application Server 8i is the last
piece of the company’s enterprise Linux strategy. It follows Oracle
8i Database Enterprise Edition, which was shipped last year, and
the Oracle Ebusiness Suite 11i, launched earlier this summer.
Bob Shimp, Oracle’s marketing director, said the company has
already released the new version of the application server for the
Unix operating system and is a few weeks away from shipping a
version for Windows.
The announcement follows similar a campaign by IBM, which
recently confirmed its commitment to support Linux across all four
of its hardware platforms – RS/6000 Unix servers, AS/400
minicomputers, S/390 mainframes and NetFinity PC servers.
Big Blue is also expected to detail plans at next week’s
LinuxWorld trade show that it will pre-load versions of Linux from
Caldera, Red Hat and TurboLinux on selected Net Vista and Aptiva
desktop and Thinkpad laptop systems.
Meanwhile, Oracle announced that its database software for Linux
is being downloaded from Oracle Technology Network at four times
the rate of Oracle on Microsoft Windows 2000 and NT.
In the past year, requests for Oracle’s database software for
Linux have increased twelve-fold. During July 1999, when Oracle
first announced Oracle8i for Linux, 20,000 copies were downloaded
that month. During July 2000, 285,000 copies of the latest release
of Oracle8i for Linux were downloaded.