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