A European phone company is looking at giving the Network Computer to families for free and charging a monthly service for Internet access, says Oracle Corp chief executive, Larry Ellison (CI No 2,929). InterOffice groupware will be not only a Lotus Notes killer, but will be the killer application Network Computers need to take off, he reckons. He bills InterOffice as one of Oracle’s most important products saying it could become its biggest in terms of number of users. The product will be launched more aggressively than any other product we have ever launched, he said in New York on Wednesday, adding that the secret plus would be multimedia electronic mail, and saying that at about $100 per user, it will also be less expensive Notes and Microsoft Corp’s Exchange. The first release ships this month and can run over a corporate intranet, with personal computers on a network, or on new Network Computers.
