Oracle's New Product Development Solution.

Oracle Corp. has brought out Oracle Product Development Exchange (PDE), a comprehensive collaborative product development and product lifecycle management solution. It allows companies from all industries -- such as manufacturing, construction, retail or graphic design -- to bring team members together to collaboratively develop, design and review projects or products.

Currently, online collaboration is rare. A recent Forrester Research report indicates that only 12 percent of companies are actively using the Web in their product development process. PDE harnesses the power of an exchange environment in which global, multi-company team members can come together to securely share product information, project schedules and performance metrics in real time. For example, a retail company based in San Francisco could, via a Web browser, review a proposed graphic from its design firm in New York and in real time mark up the copy and reach a final decision.

PDE provides project collaboration tools that automate notifications and facilitate the reduction of time and expense associated with conventional communication methods. Utilizing these collaboration tools, it can facilitate virtual design conferences where CAD drawings can be viewed and marked-up by attendees in separate locations. Drawings can then be cataloged in the Oracle Internet File System (iFS), which guarantees that valuable intellectual capital is securely held in the database, where it can be searched and versions can be maintained.