Instead of requiring many servers to upgrade, maintain and manage, Oracle Collaboration Suite helps reduce costs because it is built on a single information repository - the highly available, secure and scalable Oracle9i infrastructure.

To increase end-user productivity, Oracle Collaboration Suite uniquely provides integrated access to information using common communication tools and popular interfaces like Microsoft Outlook. End-users, for example, can listen to email using a phone, or listen to their voice mail through email.

Early users, including Abilene Christian University, one of the largest private universities in the Southwest United States, have recently started implementation of Oracle Collaboration Suite. David Gibson, senior systems analyst at Abilene Christian University, highlighted a few of the product benefits: ''Oracle Collaboration Suite will allow us to consolidate several email servers, saving time and money in our IT department. It also gives us the ability to access information through various mechanisms and from various interfaces or devices. Our main concern when evaluating messaging products was cost, efficiency, reliability and security - we anticipate that Oracle Collaboration Suite will meet those needs.''

According to IDC, the collaboration market is expected to reach $7.5 billion by 2006. With its unique advantages in productivity and cost, Oracle is well positioned with customers and partners to aggressively compete in the growing messaging and collaboration market. In just the last two months, the Oracle Collaboration Suite partner programme has grown to more than 250 members.

''We've already seen firsthand the many benefits of Oracle's Collaboration Suite. Through Oracle Collaboration Suite, we'll be able to provide our customers with the functionality they've sought for a long time,'' says Bradley D Brown, chairman of the board and chief architect of TUSC. ''Integrating email, voicemail, faxing and files simply makes a lot of business sense.

''Our knowledge of and experience with the Oracle Collaboration Suite makes TUSC an even more attractive choice for customers who are looking for creative solutions to their business problems. They're going to really appreciate the unbreakable features of Oracle's database that will make a huge difference in their uptime. Best of all, they'll be able to implement this technology without disrupting their existing end-user community. Oracle Collaboration Suite will change the way they do business forever.''

''Oracle is offering a solution for large organisations looking to lower costs by consolidating servers and replacing their Microsoft Exchange infrastructures with a multi-platform infrastructure in a way that should be invisible to Microsoft Outlook users,'' says Mark Levitt, research vice-president, Collaborative Computing, IDC.

Built on the scalable, secure Oracle9i infrastructure, the suite offers email, voice mail, calendaring, file services, and integrated cross-application search capabilities along with the ability to access this information from any type of client device or by voice.

Oracle Collaboration Suite offers the following benefits:

• Reduced Costs of Ownership: The Oracle9i infrastructure for email and file servers requires significantly less hardware and software, thereby lowering administration and capital costs dramatically. Oracle's single point of administration also gives greater control in terms of security, reliability, and availability.
• User Productivity: Users get one inbox for email, voicemail, and fax messages so they can process and manage all of their communications in one place. Using the UltraSearch capability that searches corporate information assets in shared files, databases, email and web sites in any location, users can find relevant information more efficiently by conducting the search once.
• Unlimited Scalability: IT departments get unlimited scalability along with the industry's highest levels of reliability and security. For example, Oracle Collaboration Suite scales to over 10,000 concurrent users without the need to add more servers, while Microsoft installations generally range from 350 to a maximum of 3,500 users.

''Since the announcement of Oracle Collaboration Suite two months ago, we've gained significant momentum among customers, partners and industry analysts,'' says Chuck Rozwat, executive vice-president, Server Technologies, Oracle. ''We believe there is tremendous opportunity here to offer customers a more robust and more cost-effective alternative to Microsoft. Oracle is committed to investing in and building this business for the long-term.''

Oracle Collaboration Suite is 1/3 the price of Microsoft. The price for a perpetual license of Oracle Collaboration Suite is $60 per Named User Plus, including voice support and regardless of the number of devices an individual uses to access information. Oracle also offers Oracle Collaboration Suite as an annual subscription service at $15 per Named User Plus and as an outsourced service for an additional $10 per month per Named User Plus.

Oracle Collaboration Suite is available now on Solaris, HP 9000 Series HP-UX and Linux. Support for Windows 2000, Windows NT, HP Tru64 UNIX and IBM AIX is expected by year's end.