Oracle adds workflow to 9i Application Server

by Clare Haney

February 6, 2001 —

SAN FRANCISCO -- Oracle Corp. Tuesday announced the second version of its Oracle9i Application Server (9i AS). New features include a workflow engine, application interconnection capabilities, an LDAP (lightweight directory access protocol) directory and e-mail messaging, according to an Oracle executive. The software is due to ship before the end of this month.

Application servers are software platforms where users can both deploy and manage a range of applications including Web portals and ERP (enterprise resource planning) software.

The workflow engine previously featured in Oracle's e-business applications, and Applications InterConnect is technology to help hook up high-end applications from a variety of different vendors including SAP AG, according to John Magee, Oracle's senior director of 9i product marketing. The LDAP directory will help in user authentication and identification. Oracle will also embed a generic e-mail server in 9i AS, he added.

Other new features include enhancements of the existing business intelligence capabilities in 9i AS, enabling users to perform ad hoc queries and analysis on the fly without having to change the data format beforehand, Magee said. Additional wireless capabilities will support location-based services where devices are able to determine a user's location and present them with personalized data and applications.

The pricing for 9i AS will remain unchanged, with the standard version priced at US$5 per universal power unit. Charging by the power unit is Oracle's way of avoiding charging per user, instead basing its prices on the power of the machine running the software. The enterprise version of 9i AS will cost $30 per universal power unit, while the wireless release will cost $150 per universal power unit.

The first version of 9i AS shipped in October of last year and has been well received by Oracle developers, according to Magee. During December, Oracle's developer network -- Oracle Technology Network (OTN) -- counted more than 370,000 downloads of the software, around the same number of total downloads recorded for the previous three months, he said.

Oracle doesn't break down the figures into the amounts downloaded for the three versions of 9i AS, Magee said, although he added that the standard and enterprise versions are selling in equal numbers, while the wireless release sells more strongly in Europe.

The application server market is still in its early stages, Magee said, quoting figures from analyst firm International Data Corp. (IDC), which valued the market at less than $1 billion in 1999, but rising to $11 billion in 2004. He pointed out that $11 billion was the size of the database market in 1999. "The application server market is parallel with the database market in the 1990s," Magee said. He expects medium-sized and large corporations to standardize on a specific application server vendor as they did with databases over the next one to two years.

Having a leading position already in the database market, Oracle is hoping to dominate the application server market as well, pitting itself against the likes of IBM Corp., BEA Systems Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc., as well as smaller players such as Iona Technologies Inc., Bluestone Software Inc. and SilverStream Software Inc.

To complete the 9i family of software, Oracle is planning to ship its 9i database and a new suite of developer tools later this year, according to Magee. The database should appear before the end of the first half of 2001, with the tools shipping somewhat later, he said.

IDG News Service