In the days when IBM Corp ruled the computer world, pretenders to its crown were regularly crushed by the juggernaut, and now that Microsoft Corp holds sway, it seems likely that history, somewhat distorted, will repeat itself. Microsoft has so succesfully seen off the challenge from Novell Inc that the latter looks sick even unto death, and the pretender now wearing the favour is Oracle Corp. Yesterday, the company announced what it is presenting as a complete alternative to Microsoft Corp’s BackOffice groupware suite for running a company’s entire business, with facilities for creating Intranets, and links to the Internet. The Oracle InterOffice suite includes the core Oracle7 7.3 database system with a new line of electronic messaging products and network systems administration tools. InterOffice includes features that enable it to interpret complex, unstructured data including video, text, complex documents and spatial, or mapping, data. It comes in versions for large enterprises with thousands and even tens of thousands of computer users and for workgroups in small or medium-size businesses, or departmental groups within larger companies. InterOffice includes Oracle’s WebSystem software with Sun Microsystems Inc’s Java, and supports connection to outside suppliers or information providers. As in the past when the other majors attempted to take on IBM, so weaker products tended to get crushed in the melee, so this time, it is IBM and its Notes that is the weaker product.A key feature of InterOffice is that it supports a range of communications appliances – personal computers, Personal Digital Assistants, pagers and screen phones, on corporate local networks, the World Wide Web and wireless networks, and General Magic Inc with its Magic Cap environment, Psion Plc with its handheld organisers, and Philips Electronics NV with its screen telephones, all went to the launch to say they would support it.
