Oracle Collaboration Suite everything in a single inbox<\/p>\n
Lela E. Madjiah
\nThe Jakarta Post
\nJakarta<\/p>\n
Nothing frustrates computer users more than viruses attacking
\ntheir system and frequent downtime. In fact, virus attacks and
\ndowntime have become so common they are considered a given, part
\nof the game.<\/p>\n
In a company where communication is vital, virus outbreaks and
\ndowntime affects whole systems of operation, including email and
\nfile sharing. These problems augment the already daunting task of
\nmanaging corporate data and communication as the Internet and
\ncorporate intranet continue to grow.<\/p>\n
According to industry analyst firm IDC, an enterprise
\nemploying 1,000 knowledge workers wastes US$48,000 per week, or
\nnearly $2.5 million per year, due to an inability to locate and
\nretrieve information.<\/p>\n
It is therefore a big relief that Oracle software has come up
\nwith a new product, the Collaboration Suite, which it claims to
\nreduce downtime, prevent virus outbreaks and lower costs.<\/p>\n
The software is an integrated suite of enterprise level
\napplications which focus on managing all of the communications
\nbetween individuals and teams, the content they create, as well
\nas the information necessary for supporting them. It supplies
\nemail, voice mail, calendars, file services and integrated search
\ncapabilities, along with the ability to access this information
\nfrom any type of interface -- standard desktop clients, file
\nprotocols, Web, wireless and telephone.<\/p>\n
"Oracle Collaboration Suite integrates the email, voicemail,
\nphone, fax, scheduling, calendaring, meeting management, file
\nmanagement and more in a single product," Chris Hummel, vice
\npresident for marketing and business development in Oracle
\nCorporations' Asia-Pacific Division, said here recently.<\/p>\n
The new software eases user administration of e-mail,
\nvoicemail and fax by providing one integrated message store with
\none centralized inbox. It provides voice access to your calendar,
\nallowing you to review your schedule and receive alerts when new
\nmeetings are created or existing meetings are changed.<\/p>\n
"In addition, it allows users to easily search across all
\nenterprise information repositories regardless of where the
\ninformation is located," said Hummel.<\/p>\n
This is made possible by time-saving features such as
\nUltraSearch, which allows users to search for corporate
\ninformation within all shared files, including faxes and email,
\nthus increasing their productivity.<\/p>\n
"On top of that, it integrates with familiar desktop clients
\nand interfaces like Microsoft Outlook and Explorer so no end user
\ntraining is need," Hummel added.<\/p>\n
The company also claims that the software drives down the
\ncosts of administration, software, hardware and migration in the
\nfollowing ways:<\/p>\n
* Software: By consolidating all corporate data into a single,
\nunified repository, studies have shown that user productivity can
\nincrease as well as save IT departments time and money. According
\nto a recent, independent study done by iGillotResearch, Oracle's
\nown email implementation saved the company approximately $13
\nmillion in the first year of deployment.<\/p>\n
* Hardware: Oracle Collaboration Suite allows user to
\nconsolidate hundreds of servers to one, single and reliable
\ninfrastructure, significantly reducing IT costs.<\/p>\n
* Reduced Administration: By centralizing all communications
\nin one infrastructure, the software enables IT managers to reduce
\nadministration time and lower support costs. For example, a
\nrecent case study on customers conducted by Abilene Christian
\nUniversity showed that they were able to lower support costs by
\n50 percent.<\/p>\n
* Migration: According to Ferris Research, the typical cost
\nfor customers to migrate from Microsoft Exchange 5.5 to Microsoft
\nExchange 2000 is $100 per mailbox for corporations larger than
\n1,000 seats.<\/p>\n
The Oracle Collaboration Suite includes:<\/p>\n
Oracle Email: Uses the Oracle9i database as a single message
\nstore for email. It provides message delivery, standards-based
\nclient access, a browser-based client, powerful server side rules
\nand filters, superior virus eradication capabilities and
\nadministration utilities.<\/p>\n
Users can access and manage all messages from the interface of
\ntheir choice, including a Web browser, phone, PDA and fax.<\/p>\n
The Oracle Email message store manages messages of all types -
\nincluding email, voice mail, and fax - with unmatched data
\navailability, data integrity, low recovery time, and fault-
\ntolerance capability. It takes advantage of Oracle 9i's Real
\nApplication Clusters, multithreading and parallel processing
\nso thousands of users can run with rapid response times.<\/p>\n
Oracle Voice Mail: Leverages the data world to provide
\nscalable, reliable, voice mail and inbound fax capabilities.
\nVoice mail and fax applications are built on standard interfaces
\nwhile the messages are stored in the Oracle9i database (voice
\nmails are stored as .wav files and faxes are stored as .tif
\nfiles).<\/p>\n
Support for Enterprise Computer Telephony Forum (ECTF)
\nstandards, collectively known as "CT Server", allows Oracle Voice
\nMail to easily integrate with a variety of enterprise and carrier
\nclass switches.<\/p>\n
Oracle Calendar: Offers a choice of Web clients with Personal
\nInformation Management (PIM) and full group scheduling features,
\naccess over the wireless Internet via WAP or i-Mode, desktop
\nclients available for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX, full support
\nfor Microsoft Outlook through the Outlook Connector, access by
\nShort Message Service (SMS), and full synchronization with a
\nrange of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs).<\/p>\n
Oracle Files: Increases employee productivity by enabling
\nusers to easily collaborate with their co-workers worldwide, and
\nfind files with a single search.<\/p>\n
The Web interface and the support for all the familiar desktop
\nprotocols (SMB, AFP, NFS, FTP, HTTP, or WebDAV) allow employees
\nto quickly benefit from the system without additional training.<\/p>\n
Oracle UltraSearch: A Web-based, "out-of-the-box" search
\nsolution that searches across multiple repositories: Oracle
\ndatabases, IMAP mail servers, HTML documents served up by a Web
\nserver, Oracle 9iAS Portal, files on a disk and many more.<\/p>\n
Oracle UltraSearch uses a "crawler" to index documents; the
\ndocuments stay in their own repositories, and the crawled
\ninformation is used to build an index that stays within your
\nfirewall in a designated Oracle database. Oracle UltraSearch thus
\nenables users to search across the content assets of a
\ncorporation without the need for re-architecting IT topologies,
\ncompromising security, or programming against hard-to-use API's.<\/p>\n
Wireless and Voice: For enterprises and service providers
\nlooking to increase efficiency and drive revenue with mobile
\ntechnology, the Oracle Collaboration Suite Wireless capabilities
\nprovide a complete platform for mobile development and
\ndeployment.<\/p>\n
Wireless functionality includes mobile services such as PIM
\nand email, and location-based, and push services (via SMS, WAP,
\ne-mail and voice). These services can run out-of-the-box or
\nextended with custom functionality.<\/p>\n
Oracle Collaboration Suite Wireless capabilities use a multi-
\nchannel XML framework so applications can be built once for any
\ndevice. An open architecture and the use of XML and J2EE
\nstandards ensures support for current and emerging technologies.<\/p>\n
The software was launched six months ago and already has
\ncaused rivals IBM and Microsoft to worry so much that "we
\nconsider the new product a success," said Hummel.<\/p>\n
Lower cost is one of the reasons. A customer-based study by
\nthe Radicati Group, Inc. of enterprise messaging and
\ncollaboration, including IBM Lotus, Microsoft Exchange, Oracle
\nCollaboration Suite, and Sun Microsystems found the Oracle
\nCollaboration Suite had the lowest downtime costs of US$11.30 per
\nuser, compared with $132.34 for Microsoft and $98 for IBM.<\/p>\n
Hummel claimed the clients had been very enthusiastic about
\nthe software due in large part to the fact there had not been any
\nreal innovation in the market in the last 15 years.<\/p>",
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