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Oracle redefines the balance of power

Database giant's Network Computing Architecture makes it a real player in the intranet

By William Blundon, JavaWorld.com, 11/01/96

Page 3 of 3

Oracle's customer-centric view

Compared to Netscape and Microsoft, Oracle's NCA looks refreshingly customer-centered. In the end, corporate customers don't care about elegance, they simply want to know what technology to use to solve the problem that confronts them. The biggest challenge facing developers today is simply where to start. Which standards to support? And which vision to bet on? NCA neatly sidesteps the issue by providing an all-inclusive framework that is compatible with other major initiatives. Corporations that have bet the ranch on Microsoft will feel comfortable with NCA. Those who have hitched their wagon to Netscape ONE will feel equally at ease. Agnostics -- those who are unwilling to pick a winner -- can mix and match those technologies that they find compelling and still fit easily within the Oracle framework.

In the end, versatility is the strength of NCA, it both innovates and accommodates. Where Oracle can add value, it does so; where it cannot, it supplies interfaces for existing products or standards.

Conclusion

Oracle has taken a significant step toward claiming a preeminent role in the Intranet. It has done so by providing some innovative technology and an extensible framework that is open to other visions and technologies. With its NCA, Oracle becomes the Henry Kissinger of the Internet -- a strategic thinker who knows when to be a fighter and when to be a diplomat.

Corporate customers like innovation, but they love security. With NCA, Oracle is charting a safe and flexible course for its customers. While Microsoft and Netscape battle, Oracle has positioned itself as a diplomat. In a world in which diplomacy is warfare with manners, Oracle looks like a winner.

About the author

William Blundon is president and COO of SourceCraft Inc. (http://www.sourcecraft.com), a leading developer of intranet development tools using Java and other Internet technologies. His focus in the last seven years has been on distributed object environments and the Internet. He is a former director of the Object Management Group.

 

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