Oracle shifts its focus to Java, applications

Oracle this week will conduct a Java Day, laying out a blueprint for supporting Java in the company's product lines, Oracle officials said.

One element of the Java plan is to insert a Java virtual machine in the Oracle8.1 database, due later this year. The database also will support deployment of Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) components and SQLJ, a specification for Java-based SQL database statements. Also, Oracle8.1 will feature an object request broker for standard CORBA communications between applications and the database, officials said.

In its Network Computing Architecture for Internet computing, Oracle plans Java support in clients and tools. The company's applications will feature EJB components as well.

This feature is one of many Oracle has planned for its applications. No longer satisfied with being No. 2, Oracle is turbocharging its packaged applications business with this week's formal unveiling of its Oracle11 suite of enterprise resource applications, due out between late April and early May.

Also in the works are hosted business services -- Oracle Online -- which are outsourcing services geared to the small to midsize business market implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP).

With an ambitious goal of trying to double its ERP applications business to $3 billion by 2001, Oracle starts its next fiscal year on June 1 with a sales and marketing strategy intended to help catch the company up with market leader SAP. The German company earned more than $3.31 billion in 1997. (See "Oracle builds new strategy for old woes," March 30, page 1.)

While continuing its focus on manufacturing, financial, and certain vertical markets, Oracle will also pay special attention to beefing up its front-office applications, including marketing, sales, and customer service automation applications, said Nimish Mehta, senior vice president of the industry applications division.

With SAP "years away from rolling out decent [front-office] applications," Mehta said, Oracle is sniffing an opportunity.

Other advantages Oracle will exploit in its quest for the ERP market lead are its partnerships with specialized applications vendors such as supply-chain management systems makers Manugistics, i2 Technologies, and others, Mehta said.

"We don't claim to have all the expertise in all areas," Mehta said.

Unlike SAP, which follows a do-it-all-alone approach, Oracle will continue to partner with best-of-breed vendors, Mehta added.

Oracle Corp., in Redwood Shores, Calif., is at (650) 506-7000.

Torsten Busse is a San Francisco correspondent for the IDG News Service, an InfoWorld affiliate.