Oracle Targets SharePoint
January 27, 2011
Maybe Oracle knows that search in SharePoint is a secondary consideration. Oracle has a couple of different search solutions. SES11g is the flagship, but I don’t think of the system as a user friendly, SharePoint snap it. Nevertheless, Oracle senses weakness in the SharePoint ranks, and it is going to go for the kill. Navigate to “Oracle Makes a Fresh Run at SharePoint.” The main point of the write up in my opinion is:
But Oracle is positioning WebCenter Suite as something more robust than “purely ad-hoc” SharePoint installations that mostly play the role of file servers, MacMillan said. “What we’re talking about is how you are collaborating around key business processes,” he said.
If this is indeed true, Oracle is going to have to find a solution to the “findability” challenge that this type of portal play presents. We continue to hear rumors about tire kicking, management change, and new investments in search at Oracle. What is clear to me is that talk has not translated into action. If Oracle does snag former SharePoint customers, Oracle is going to have to get with the search and content program quickly. We think this opens some opportunities for vendors who play well with SharePoint and who have smiled and hugged Oracle in the last couple of years. Good news for some search vendors. Not such good news for Microsoft?
Stephen E Arnold, January 27, 2011
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2 Responses to “Oracle Targets SharePoint”
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Hi Stephen,
just one more note about Sinequa here (since you talk about Sharepoint and search). They got a really powerful Sharepoint connnector that makes all content really easily findable.
Best regards,
Joachim
Greetings:
Having worked at Oracle and having worked at FAST (pre Microsoft acquisition), I feel I can offer some insight. First, Microsoft spent over $1 billion dollars on the FAST acquisition, and spent 2 years completing the smooth integration of FAST and SharePoint. The installation of FAST into SharePoint 2010 is pretty straight forward.The bundled search engine (i.e. no installation outside of the SharePoint install) is also quite good.
Oracle is pushing the former Acqua Logic portal (now called WebCenter) as their competitor to SharePoint. Having install WebCenter Portal (10g), I can tell you that it is by far one of the hardest pieces of software I have EVER installed. (and I have installed lots of software) It is also extremely difficult to configure. While at Oracle, I was working on a customer POC with one of the Sales Engineers, that had worked on the product since it’s PlumTree days (before BEA purchased them, and before ORACLE purchased BEA) and it took him days to customize WebCenter Portal.
The interaction with the portal and the way to configure it was SO last century.
Unless the 11G version of WebCenter Portal has been total rewritten, I would not touch it with a 10 foot pole.
As far as collaboration features in SharePoint vs WebCenter, I am at a lost to see where Oracle thinks they have an advantage but I have not yet read the paper you pointed to. I would be surprised if there were more and better collaboration tools in WebCenter vs SharePoint.
take care
Phil Helesl