Oracle released Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g earlier this week, the latest edition of its suite of collaboration products for the enterprise market. The Suite includes four main components that work on the Oracle Database 10g and Application Server 10g:
- Content Services ... offering document and file management, records management functions, and document sharing capabilities. Formerly called Oracle Files, Content Services is aimed at bringing "good enough" content management capabilities to the enterprise user.
- Workspaces ... a collaborative workspace product for internal project teams. Enables information workers to access discussions, meetings, action points, tasks and emails related to a specific project. This review further explores the Workspaces capability.
- Real-Time Collaboration ... instant messaging, voice chat, presence and Web conferencing capabilities to enable real-time interaction between people.
- Unified Messaging ... email, voicemail and fax capture, storage and access within a unified interface for information workers. Access from a Web browser is supported, and the Push-IMAP standard is used to push new emails to users on wireless devices.
The Suite is priced at $60 per user, or $45 per user per component. Records Management is treated as a value-added option to Content Services, and costs an additional $100 per user.
Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g is currently available for Linux x86 and Solaris. A Windows version has not been released at this time.
Workspaces 10g
The addition of Workspaces 10g is a good move by Oracle, and is being touted as a "SharePoint killer". How well it does that remains to be seen, but by using that term Oracle instantly provides a clear classification of the product in the mind of potential users. Digging into the capabilities of Workspaces 10g reveals the following:
- Users with appropriate rights can create a Workspace for a team project. Templates are provided to bring together a set of collaborative services for a specific type of project.
- Within a Workspace, users can share documents, hold discussions and meetings, and manage a shared list of tasks.
- The main interface for users is a Web browser (meaning that offline access via synchronization with a rich client is not available). Users can access some Workspaces 10g content through different clients, such as email and discussions from IMAP-capable clients (eg, Outlook), calendars and schedules from calendar clients, and documents via WebDAV file browsers.
- A software development kit enables ISVs and corporate developers to integrate the capabilities of Workspaces 10g into other applications.
- A "What's New" listing of new and revised items since the user last accessed the workspace.
- Members and non-members can email relevant material into the workspace.
Analysis
Some thoughts about OCS 10g in the market:
- Microsoft makes a big play on "agility". Given that Oracle's collaboration stack has fewer moving parts (ie, fewer required server software products), and is already built on a relational database, one could say that Oracle offers better and earlier agility benefits to IT organizations.
- The offering is priced to sell. At an end-user level, the economics for adoption are very attractive. $60/user brings enterprise email, calendaring, team workspaces, Web conferencing, instant messaging and presence, and more. Even in comparison to Scalix--the Linux-based email server vendor--Oracle has a very compelling entry price.
- This product won't be a threat in Notes/Domino shops that have an installed base of custom-build and workflow-enabled Notes/Domino applications. Unless the Notes/Domino shop is willing to shift to "just a vanilla team workspace" approach, there's nothing in here to replace the application development capabilities in Notes/Domino.
Unknown Points
Oracle is briefing me later in the week on 10g. Here are some questions that I'll take into the session:
- What are the requirements for including external users in a Workspace?
- Is Pillar 2 for offline access is addressed at all? It appears that users will not be able to take Workspace content offline, make changes while on an airplane, and then reconnect to the network and synchronize those changes.
- Is Pillar 4, for automatic calendar consolidation and Suite-wide free/busy search addressed? Oracle has the technical foundation to enable this, with (a) the calendar server assets it acquired with the Steltor acquisition of some years back, and (b) the storage of data elements in the Oracle database. But have they done it?
- Is Pillar 6, for automatic consolidation of assigned tasks across all workspaces addressed? Again, with Oracle apparently storing task data in the Oracle Database, can users access a single consolidated listing of everything they are expected to do? Does that list synchronize with Palm and Pocket PC devices so users can carry that around and mark off items when out-and-about? The available client installs for Pocket PC and Palm appear limited to synchronization of calendar entries.
- Are there any Pillar 7 capabilities in the Suite, to automatically notify users of other people they could talk with? Tacit knowledge and understanding will be built up in the system over time, and automatic search and notification queries could be used to notify users when there are other people that they could consult with on a specific problem or issue.
Next Action
If you are interested in an personalized exploration of the use of Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g within your environment, please get in contact with me.