CRN | Breaking News | Oracle Preps SMB App Server Assault

CRN | Breaking News | Oracle Preps SMB App Server Assault "Next month at Oracle World in London, Oracle plans to launch a Standard Edition of Oracle Application Server 10g that includes its application server plus its Web server and portal server, said Thomas Kurian, senior vice president, application server, for Oracle. Although Kurian declined to disclose pricing, he said the offering will be positioned squarely against Microsoft's Small Business Server and focused on small and midsize enterprises. "Microsoft is the primary competitor we see here," Kurian said during a briefing in New York, downplaying the ability of either of its fierce rivals in this sector, IBM Software and BEA Systems, to reach this market.
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Oracle is keenly aware that most enterprises use more than one application server platform and hopes to displace its rivals with an aggressive total cost of ownership argument and its integrated architecture message. For example, Kurian estimated that 93 of BEA's top 100 customers and 92 of IBM's best accounts also use Oracle application server technology.
Depending on which market-share figures you cite, Oracle is the third-largest revenue contributor to the application server market with approximately 20 percent of the market, behind IBM and BEA, said Oracle Chairman Jeff Henley. Oracle's application server business grew 15 percent in the company's last fiscal year, or about 1,200 new customers per quarter, and the vendor hopes to maintain that rate.
"BEA continues to be the core competitor," Henley said. "We think that we are gaining real significant traction against them."

Oracle wants to be on Lintel what Microsoft is on Wintel.