Netscape has moved into Web-based enterprise application services with the announcement of two products for Peoplesoft, Netscape Application Server for Peoplesoft and PerLDAP for Peoplesoft. The products are intended to integrate Internet applications with ERP systems, and will allow Peoplesoft customers to extend their Peoplesoft systems across the Internet to reach customers and business partners. Netscape's move will go some way to strengthen its hand in the nascent, ASP (Application Services Provider) business, which is already being promoted by Oracle via Oracle Business Online. Netscape does, however, seem to be taking a more conservative route than Oracle, for the moment. Oracle sees Business Online offering an application rental system, giving smaller companies access to enterprise applications, whereas although Netscape and Peoplesoft may also in effect be doing this, they're taking an extranet-business partner route, building on logical development in communications between large businesses and their partners and customers. Application Server for Peoplesoft is due to ship in the first half of next year, at $70,000 per CPU. ® Click for more stories Click for story index