Oracle tries its hand at vendor NC initiative

Oracle is the latest vendor to push its network computer (NC) initiative through a Centre of Excellence strategy, dwarfing Sun Microsystems' Java Centre programme.

Oracle subsidiary Network Computer Incorporated (NCI) has appointed Morse Group as UK distributor for its network in a box. The bundle includes an Intel-based server, two NCs, network management software, NC desktop - the NC operating system - and a range of apps.

The next phase of Sun Microsystems' Java Centre rollout will go ahead this month, with plans to launch a further 23 centres. Sun's Java Centre initiative was launched in April 1996 when the vendor, in conjunction with its UK partners, opened six Java Centres of Excellence. But Sun's three top resellers, Computacenter, Tplc and Morse, have all failed to get fully behind the initiative.

While Morse has not set up a Java Centre, it has set up an Enterprise Computing Centre to push its NCI distribution deal. The centre will use NCI clients and an Intel-based server.

Mark Byatt, director of technology marketing for Morse Group, said the centre used devices from 'a whole range of vendors, from Sun through to NCI' and stressed that the centre would also deploy Sun servers. It has also emerged that Morse's Sun division will be managed from Edinburgh.

Morse denied this would lead to a defocus.

Sun's market development manager Charles Tipping said the vendor was talking to 30 companies about setting up Java Centres. Info Products will launch one at the end of November and Relay Business Systems is building a second Java Centre in London.