In a series of announcements this week at Oracle Openworld it is clear that Oracle is making a strong move into Enterprise 2.0 enabled applications. Before this week, Oracle (and most of the other large enterprise software companies) was regularly criticized by bloggers, start ups and analyst as not understanding Web 2.0 and not building applications that incorporated the best of Web 2.0 concepts. So what are these new applications and does Oracle now "get it"?
First the announcements:
- Oracle Beehive - open platform for integrated and secure collaboration. Beehive delivers integrated team workspaces, presence, calendar, instant messaging, and email.
- Oracle Sales Campaigns and Oracle Sales Library based on the Oracle Social Applications Framework - sales applications that enable productivity enhancements via Enterprise 2.0 and Social CRM. These apps are a part of the new Oracle Social CRM.
- Oracle Social CRM
- Oracle Social Applications Framework - enables companies to share information within communities or throughout an ecosystem. The Framework controls access to Oracle Social Networks while enabling collective company data to work across multiple networks. The apps help sales and marketing to use social intelligence to improve sales performance.
- Oracle Webcenter Suite - an open and manageable user interaction and portal platform that can help companies securely deliver extranet and intranet portals along with composite applications that integrate processes, content, BI, and information in a single user interface. The WebCenter Suite also enables delivery of Enterprise 2.0 services, like blogs, wikis, forums, secure search, and RSS feeds, through portals and communities.
- Content enabled applications
In addition to the above releases Oracle also has built a dedicated Enterprise 2.0 sales force and expanded its internal use of Web 2.0 technology. For example Oracle announced a new support portal, My Oracle Support (aimed at personalizing support and making support more proactive) that will include a communities feature in its next release (in the next few months). In partner programs Oracle announced a new partner portal and new Web 2.0-like initiatives to increase collaboration and interaction between Oracle and the partners and partner to partner.
So does Oracle "get it"? Well, there is a lot of evidence that they do, just look at the number and type of announcements. Still, I suppose we'll have to see what Oracle's customers say and if they will vote with their $. You do have to wonder what this could mean for the multitude of Enterprise 2.0 start ups, I mean if a customer can get an Enterprise 2.0 platform from Oracle would they be willing to risk buying from a start up? And short of the start ups that might be interesting acquisition targets will the others be able to get VC funding? And lastly how will the other enterprise vendors react to Oracle's strong move?
