In the aftermath of Oracle Corp’s Oracle 8 database launch (CI N0 3,190), the company has announced an all-in-one package designed to help organizations implement Oracle Applications enterprise business software. Aimed at companies in the $50 to $500m range, the package, known as FastForward, includes technology, applications, consulting services, training and support. Oracle believes the package, which has been made immediately available, is key to tailoring the needs of middle market customers who apparently want, and need to be able to take full advantage of, their software investments as soon as possible. The FastForward program supports up to 100 users and is available on Hewlett- Packard Co’s HP-UX, Sun Microsystems Inc’s Solaris, IBM Corp’s AIX and Unix and Windows NT on Intel Corp machines. Oracle worked closely with Hewlett-Packard when it was putting the FastForward package together and declared Hewlett-Packard as the preferred hardware vendor. It also turned to Smart Corp for its automated conversion tool, Smart DB, which enables increased quality and reduced time, cost and risk when migrating data to Oracle databases.
