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Oracle Press Release ORACLE CHALLENGES THE HIGH PRICE OF MICROSOFT WITH NEW ORACLE COLLABORATION SUITE REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., Jul. 10, 2002 - Speaking to hundreds of financial analysts today, Oracle's Chairman and CEO Lawrence J. Ellison debuted Oracle's latest suite of software, Oracle Collaboration Suite, which is built upon Oracle's unbreakable software infrastructure. Challenging the high price of Microsoft's collaboration software, Oracle Collaboration Suite is designed to provide relief from Microsoft technology pain points - security, reliability, integration, universal search and access through any device. It also will offer innovations designed to improve individual and group productivity, and for the first time, information technology (IT) productivity. Oracle Collaboration Suite will include complete collaboration software - calendar, real-time conferencing capabilities, email, file system support, voicemail and workflow - centralized and protected in a database with universal access through Microsoft Outlook, any Web browser, voice, wireless devices and fax. Oracle is introducing a number of innovations to collaboration software, including integrated voice access and voicemail as well as Ultra Search capabilities, which gives users the unprecedented ability to search in one place for any document, email, voicemail or other communication using dates, words or phrases. Oracle's centralized database approach to collaboration combined with these innovative technologies is designed to produce dramatic increases in productivity and cost savings across the enterprise. "Oracle Collaboration Suite is designed to deliver cost savings by reducing the number of email servers needed to run most email," said David Ferris, president of Ferris Research, a messaging and collaboration analyst firm. "The integration between different types of communication, especially email and voicemail, is an attractive vision to enhance individual productivity." Beta customers such as Emerson also highlight the benefits of Oracle Collaboration Suite: "After a preliminary review of the Oracle Collaboration Suite, we are impressed with its ability to seamlessly integrate with the Microsoft Outlook client," said Greg Carmichael, vice president and CIO, Emerson. "Oracle's centralized database architecture is consistent with how we plan to deliver applications to users in the future, and we anticipate it will enable us to greatly reduce server and administration costs. In addition, the suite's wireless functionality, voice integration and Web interface have the potential to add significant value to our organization. We are looking forward to further evaluation of the offering."
Oracle Sows Seeds in An Emerging Market Oracle is seizing this opportunity to enter the collaboration market with a more advanced and integrated collaboration platform at a much lower price, backed by Oracle's unbreakable software infrastructure. Oracle has made a number of investments in developing complete and integrated collaboration software, including four years of research and development as well as the recent acquisition of Steltor, a privately-owned company in Montreal, Canada that offers the market's best open-system time management communication software for supporting all of the calendaring features, including the advanced capabilities, of Microsoft Outlook. Oracle Collaboration Suite customers can keep the Microsoft Outlook user interface while taking advantage of Oracle's integrated suite and unbreakable software infrastructure. The Oracle Collaboration Suite will include the clustering and high availability technology from the Oracle9i Database with Real Application Clusters and Oracle9i Application Server. Oracle Collaboration Suite will offer embedded Oracle database technology to store files, messages and user information, and embedded technology from Oracle's application server to provide a Web server, directory services, and single sign-on capabilities. "Oracle Collaboration Suite is addressing customer demand for a more integrated communication environment," said Dr. Sara Radicati, president & CEO of the Radicati Group, Inc. a market research and consulting firm based in Palo Alto and London, UK. "Today, Oracle is pushing the envelope on messaging and collaboration by meeting that demand while also offering scalability and low cost of ownership."
Oracle: Complete Productivity at a Significantly Lower Price than Microsoft The introductory price for a perpetual license of Oracle Collaboration Suite is $60 per named user, including voice support and regardless of the number of devices an individual uses to access information. Microsoft's licensing policy requires that all PCs/devices used by an individual be licensed via an Enterprise Agreement Core Client Access License at $85 annually for three years, which can drive up license costs dramatically. Oracle will also offer Oracle Collaboration Suite as an annual subscription service at $15 per named user and as an outsourced service for an additional $10 per month per named user. "Collaboration has become mission critical for companies, but software hasn't kept pace due to lack of competition in the market," said Charles Rozwat, executive vice president of Server Technologies at Oracle. "With the introduction of Oracle Collaboration Suite, we're bringing a strong value proposition at a low price point: complete, integrated and unbreakable collaboration."
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Oracle Collaboration Suite Services
About Oracle's Acquisition of Steltor Approximately 100 people on Steltor's staff have joined Oracle as a result of the acquisition, including a majority of Steltor's development team and support staff, who will continue to provide full standard support to existing customers such as Adobe, BMW, Bristol Myers Squibb, Genentech, Kellogg, Saritel, Texas Instruments, United Messaging, Verizon, and 63 of the top 100 universities in the United States including Cornell, Georgetown, Stanford, and the University of California.
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Trademarks 1 Source: IDC's "Worldwide Integrated Collaborative Environments Forecast, 2002-2006: The Chances for a Second ICE Age" published in February 2002. 2 For 5000 desktops, one PC per named user, a comparable system from Microsoft - Microsoft Enterprise Core CAL (client access license), comprised of MS Windows Server, MS Exchange Server, MS Management Server and MS Sharepoint Portal Server - would cost $1.28M available only as a three-year license. In contrast, Oracle will support the same number of named users under a perpetual license with three years of update Subscription for $450,000. Source: http://www.softwarespectrum.com and http://microsoft.com
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