Oracle stops Bandwagon development in its tracks

Oracle admitted last week that it had stopped development work on Bandwagon, a product designed to compete with Microsoft Backoffice.

Bandwagon, announced by the company a year ago, was supposed to combine Oracle's database with a groupware product and a Web server.

But according to Richard Grogan Crane, European marketing director for Oracle's groupware/messaging product Interoffice, said the company took so long to come out with Interoffice that the Bandwagon idea was scrapped.

'We announced Bandwagon about a year ago, which was a mistake as we didn't have all the pieces. We lacked the collaborative computing piece.

'We have delivered all the products that would have made up Bandwagon, but not as a bundle. Customers can pick and choose if they want them.'

Crane said Oracle may bundle the products together in future, but is more likely to wrap them up into vertical packages for particular markets.