Oracle 9i, the perfect tool to boost e-business
E-business is really heating up these days and software firms are making every effort to grab market share. Oracle OpenWorld 2000, a celebration of Oracle technology, was held in San Francisco, earlier this month. The Jakarta Post's T. Sima Gunawan, along with dozens of other journalists from the Asia and Pacific region, was invited to cover the event. Below is her report.
SAN FRANCISCO (JP): Who dares to mock Bill Gates, the richest person on earth? Who else if not the Silicon Valley's Bad Boy Larry Ellison, whose wealth comes second after him?
Ellison, chairman and CEO of Oracle Corporation, brought "Bill Gates" -- not just one "Bill Gates", but many -- live on stage during last week's Oracle OpenWorld 2000 at the Moscone Convention Center here, and made fun of him. These "Bill Gateses" came on stage in a short play about e-business presented by Jeremy Burton, Senior Vice President Product and Services Marketing Oracle Corporation.
The play featured two automotive companies that wanted to get into e-business. The first one deployed a platoon of stupid men all of whom looked like Bill Gates while the second one hired a smart guy who worked efficiently. The result was predictable: the first company collapsed and the other one, which used Oracle 9i, was successful.
A few hours earlier, Ellison launched the Oracle 9i Application Server, the fastest cache on the Internet which is said to be able to dramatically increase website performance and scalability. He boasted that it was so terrific that he initially wanted to call it Oracle Magic, but then refrained as he was afraid the name would mislead people.
If the software is installed on a number of machines, each machine can access the data and the speed is not hampered. In fact, he said, four machines run faster than one machine.
"That's why I call it magic," he said.
Oracle 9i is the result of the evolution of the Oracle Internet Application Server 8i, which was launched only last year. Ellison claimed that a single instance of Oracle 9i is expected to boost the performance of e-business capacity. Busy websites, which are often too slow, can expect to overcome the pressure as the advanced cache technology stores and loads while balancing frequently accessed webpages in its memory. On a single 2-CPU machine, it has the capacity of 7,500 page views/second per PC.
"Oracle.com is the fastest page in the Web," boasted Ellison, whose net worth is about US$55 billion - a few billion dollars less than Gates'.
He then demonstrated before the thousands of enthusiastic spectators the performance of his Web site, compared to Yahoo.com, Amazon.com and Microsoft.com.
Every time he mentioned Microsoft -- the brainchild of Bill Gates -- he sneered reflecting his dislike for Gates. At a media briefing held later on in the day, he showed his annoyance when a reporter said that his concept of integration in Oracle 9i was similar to what Microsoft had done with its Windows. "No, he never did that," he said.
Unlike Microsoft, which serves personal users, Oracle caters for the needs of big business. With the launching of Oracle 9i, Oracle, the world's second-biggest software firm and the largest provider of software for e-business, has extended its technological lead in the expected $11 billion application server market.
Founded in 1997, Oracle has 43,000 employees worldwide, including Indonesia. Its revenue has kept on soaring with $5.7 billion being earned in the first year, $7.1 billion in the following year, $8.8 billion in 1999 and $9.7 billion in the last four quarters.
Ellison believes that his company has a bright future. While a number of dotcom companies have gone out of business, e-business will nevertheless become much stronger. The fashion now has changed from B2C (Business-to-Customer) to B2B (Business-to- Business).
"The trend is like the fashion of clothing," said the flamboyant CEO who reportedly wears $3,000 designer suits.
"B2C is out of fashion. B2B is in fashion," he said.
Direct online selling to the end-users, known as B2C, flourished about two years ago with the emergence of numerous dotcom companies. However, many dotcoms around the world have now collapsed, not because of their poor performance, but rather a lack of ads and revenues. This global phenomenon is also being felt strongly in Indonesia, where many dotcom companies are now in trouble.
The focus of online business is now B2B and this trend will become stronger. Those who do not follow the fashion will find themselves out of business as they won't be able to compete.
Today, between 200 million and 300 million people use the Internet and in three years' time there will be about half a billion Internet users. Analysts predict that individual consumers and businesses will then produce combined e-commerce revenues of more than $1.3 trillion.
Everyday sees multi-million dollar online business transactions. Forrester Research estimates that global e-commerce transactions in 1999 reached $390 billion and will reach $1 trillion in 2001. It predicts that by 2001, 70 percents of businesses will be buying and selling their products through internet-based marketplace, swapping a total of $1 trillion. In 2004, it will take a total of $2.7 trillion worth of goods and service.
In Indonesia, according to the International Data Corporation, online business over the last 3 years was less than $20 million. In 2000, transactions should reach $100 million and double in the next year. By 2003, the figure should soar to $1.2 billion.
"The great thing about the Internet is the fact that it is so low-cost that everybody can afford it," Ellison said.
He related how computers, which used to be very expensive, are now becoming cheaper and cheaper. He said that in the U.S., you could get one for as little as $200, or the same price as a television set.
People will be able to save a lot of money with online business. This really works in America and other developed countries, and it will surely also work in other parts of the world, like Indonesia, according to Ellison.