Apps on menu at Oracle users' conference

Database giant Oracle Corp will make an applications push at its annual user conference this week, with announcements expected around the company's Collaboration Suite, management software and application server.

The Redwood Shores, California-based company is today expected to open its OracleWorld conference in San Francisco, California announcing real-time capabilities in its Collaboration Suite. Oracle told ComputerWire Friday it would introduce features "that let applications use real-time capabilities."

Oracle will this week unveil Project Mozart, part of the latest version of the company's Enterprise Manager product - version 4.0. Mozart is designed to audit and manage software assets, using so-called "fetchlets" that can - for example - be programmed to check a specific application for latest security patches. Data is then stored in a central repository.

Oracle is also expected to announce out-of-the-box support for XML-based e-business web services standards, RosettaNet, UCCnet and HL7. Oracle said it will hammer the integration message following months of integration positioning from Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) application server rivals BEA Systems Inc and IBM.

Company vice president of marketing for Oracle 9i Rene Bonvanie said while these latest application initiatives and announcements would help drive up database revenues, that wasn't Oracle's sole intention. Bonvanie believes collaboration, systems management and application servers represent strong market opportunites in their own right for Oracle.

"Yes we are a database company and it will drive database revenue. But there is a $1bn application server market up for grabs and we will leverage our collaboration suite," he said.

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