Oracle Corp today launches what is being seen as the product that ends the browser wars by moving the battlefield from the desktop to the internet or intranet server, and also the Oracle answer to Microsoft Corp’s ActiveX strategy. Called Network Computing Architecture, Oracles new Big Idea is designed to bridge the gap between client-server, intranet and Internet applications, and it is structured around a middleware layer called an Application/WebServer which combines HyperText Transfer Protocol serving capabilities with object request broking, applications hosting and development capabilities. Oracle plans to add an Object Request Broker to the WebServer that supports Common Object Request Broker Architecture-compliant objects and the Internet Inter-Orb Protocol, so distributed objects to intercommunicate. Plug-ins get called many strange things from virtual machines to objects, but Oracle has chosen the name cartridge for its variant, and it seems a cartridge can be anything from a stand-alone application to a Corba-compliant objects, to Java or HyperText Mark-up Language applications. Oracle claims backing from such as Hewlett-Packard Co, Sun Microsystems Inc and Baan Co.
