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Oracle Takes the Hardware Road

In 1996, Oracle made a run at the hardware with The Network Computer, which as I recall was a $200 dumb terminal that used the Internet to serve up corporate and consumer apps. PCs at the time were cheap enough -- and Web apps lame enough -- that it never worked.

Now Oracle is back in the hardware saddle, this time with a vastly different and higher-end strategy. This time, the Oracle hardware is designed to support a massive database server and a separate storage appliance.

The move is more about packaging than innovation. Oracle will simply blend its software with HP hardware. Still, moves like this make it easier for IT to buy, install, operate and maintain systems, so there's a clear net plus.

Posted by Doug Barney on September 29, 2008


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