Cohesive collaboration

Oracle has released Collaboration Suite 10g, a set of collaboration products that are designed to deliver robust functionality for businesses to better manage and deliver content and communications throughout the enterprise. The company claims it is the first collaboration offering in the market to support seamless management of all structured and unstructured enterprise information on a single architecture.

Components of Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g include:

Content Services. The company says this module offers enhanced content management functionality for all users throughout the enterprise. The platform is priced and designed for enterprisewide records management, business process automation and integrated file and document management. Formerly known as Oracle Files, Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g Content Services enables customers to gain control of their enterprise information and policies to support regulatory compliance and mitigate risks associated with poorly managed content. Content Services further offers enhanced file management and sharing capabilities and adds new document life cycle and records management functionalities and business process automation capabilities.

Workspaces. Included in the suite are new capabilities for collaboration that enable project teams to organize and manage documents, messages, meetings, tasks and discussions within a cohesive, secure environment dedicated to a specific project or process. The Workspaces component captures in one location all activities, discussions, meetings, actions, tasks and e-mails that revolve around a document, enabling users to capture, manage, find and utilize all the knowledge involving the document, says Oracle. The company adds that Collaboration Suite 10g leverages the power of the Oracle database to manage unstructured information.

Real-Time Collaboration. The suite now offers instant messaging, voice chat and presence in addition to enhanced Web conferencing capabilities, enabling users to instantly locate individuals and groups across an enterprise and communicate in real time, while transitioning from instant message to voice chat or to a Web conference. Communication is secure, while retaining auditable records to help meet corporate governance and regulation needs.

Unified Messaging. Oracle now provides a unified platform for managing e-mail, voicemail and fax messages in the 10g database. Enhanced features of Unified Messaging include the new Oracle Web Access, which brings together a user-friendly design with rich features to offer a desktop-like user experience in a browser. Further, by supporting standards such as the Push-IMAP protocol, Oracle Unified Messaging enables the delivery of e-mails to a variety of wireless devices over public networks.