Oracle has announced it will be supporting IBM and SCO's Project Monterey/64 by offering Oracle Internet Directory and its database and application suites on both IBM's AIX and on Monterey/64 for Intel's IA-64. According to Oracle, AIX and Monterey/64 will be preferred Oracle platforms for strategic enterprise Unix on IBM POWER and Intel IA-64 architectures. Doug Michels of SCO, we note from the release, appears to be the only party to the deal who has both heard that IA-64 is now called Itanium and is actually prepared to call it that. Oracle expects to have Internet Directory for AIX available before the end of this year, and to ship the Monterey ports in the second half of next. We note also that IBM refers to "IBM OEMs for AIX and/or Monterey/64, including Acer, Bull, CETIA, Compaq, IBM, ICL, Samsung and Unisys..." Aside from IBM listing itself as its own OEM, which only goes to show how byzantine Big Blue's internal systems are, notice there are a couple of members of the NT fan club in there - when IA-64 Unix ships and 64-bit Windows 2000 doesn't, might they be planning an escape bid? ®