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OracleWorld: Partners Fall in Line

SAN FRANCISCO — Picking on Microsoft is a full time job for Oracle , which is why the No. 2 business software maker is relishing this week’s announced partnerships with some of Bill Gates’ favorite companies. Among the companies lining up to support Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle in their 9i “Unbreakable” platform are long-time Microsoft […]

Written By

Michael Singer

Nov 12, 2002

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SAN FRANCISCO — Picking on Microsoft is a full time job for Oracle , which is why the No. 2 business software maker is relishing this week’s announced partnerships with some of Bill Gates’ favorite companies.

Among the companies lining up to support Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle in their 9i “Unbreakable” platform are long-time Microsoft supporters Dell Computer , Hewlett-Packard , EMC and Intel .

Each of the four companies is making a marquee keynote address this week. Each will pledge some type of support for either Oracle’s 9i Application Server or 9i Database Server software. Just about the only mainstream companies making OracleWorld announcements this week that doesn’t have a relationship with Microsoft is Red Hat , Sun Microsystems .

In the case of HP, Oracle said Tuesday that the Palo Alto, Calif.-based computer and printer maker would begin shipping a free, special version of Oracle9i Application Server, which includes Standard Edition J2EE 1.3 server software on HP’s upcoming HP-UX systems or HP ProLiant servers for Linux and Microsoft Windows. A day earlier, Oracle tapped HP as the key development partner to move Oracle9i Database onto the Intel Itanium 2 processor. HP and Oracle also said they have launched a Remote Support Technology initiative to identify and fix interoperability issues.

Dell CEO Michael Dell is expected to unveil Dell PowerEdge servers and Oracle9i Database with Real Application Clusters in Red Hat Linux Advanced Server environments to support the latest Dell-EMC storage systems and to provide additional software support. The company will offer low-cost configurations of two clustered PowerEdge 2650 servers with a Dell EMC CX400 storage array and high-end configuration of clustered 8-way PowerEdge 8450 servers with the Dell EMC CX600 storage array.

Red Hat Sunday said it would make the Oracle Cluster File System (OCFS) available to Red Hat enterprise customers.

EMC Executive Chairman Mike Ruettgers is expected to showcase his company’s Automated Networked Storage technology. EMC is one of the largest storage providers for nearly a decade. The two companies recently opened the Oracle and EMC Joint Service Center to support mutual customers.

Second-tier partners are also climbing aboard the Oracle train. Among them:

Business intelligence software vendor Business Objects said its WebIntelligence platform will support Oracle9i App Server.
Ask Jeeves , said it will adopt Oracle9i Application Server as a strategic platform for its JeevesOne, Jeeves Solutions’ business service.
Application Traffic Management product maker F5 Networks , said it is teaming with Oracle on Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA), Oracle’s complete High Availability (HA) blueprint.

Oracle said the partnerships are key to not only fighting Microsoft’s “expensive” alternative, but is expected to help bring about the return to profitability that Oracle CFO Jeff Henley predicted for next year.

“During the first half of calendar ’03, we’ll start to see this thing turn around,” Henley said at OracleWorld. After that, Henley said he expects company to “return to positive revenue growth.”