Launched in 2000, after earlier product lines including "Oracle Mail" and Oracle InterOffice the Oracle Collaboration Suite represented the next attempt by Oracle Corporation

Oracle Corporation

Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...

 to enter the Enterprise collaboration system market. While these products lacked the type of commercial success of Microsoft Exchange, for example, they represented an early database-driven communications and messaging application platform which is used internally by Oracle and by a number of large customers, worldwide. Initially marketed as a Unified Messaging

Unified messaging

Unified Messaging is the integration of different electronic messaging and communications media technologies into a single interface, accessible from a variety of different devices....

 system, it has grown as a product to incorporate many of the features one would expect in an Enterprise level collaborative tool, as well as features more normally associated with standalone Content management

Content management

Content management, or CM, is the set of processes and technologies that support the collection, managing, and publishing of information in any form or medium. In recent times this information is typically referred to as content or, to be precise, digital content...

 systems. These features include:

• Real Time Collaboration
  • Instant Messaging
    Instant messaging
    Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
    
    
  • Web Conferencing
    Web conferencing
    Web conferencing refers to a service that allows conferencing events to be shared with remote locations. Most vendors also provide either a recorded copy of an event, or a means for a subscriber to record an event. The service allows information to be shared simultaneously, across geographically...
    
    
  • Desktop sharing
    Desktop sharing
    Desktop sharing is a common name for technologies and products that allow remote access and remote collaboration on a person's computer desktop through a graphical Terminal emulator.The most common two scenarios for desktop sharing are:* Remote log-in...
    
    
• Unified Messaging
  • eMail
    Email
    Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
    
    
  • Voice Mail
  • Fax
    Fax
    Fax , sometimes called telecopying, is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material , normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device...
    
    
  • Telephony
    Telephony
    In telecommunications, telephony encompasses the general use of equipment to provide communication over distances, specifically by connecting telephones to each other....
    
    
  • Wireless
    Wireless
    Wireless telecommunications is the transfer of information between two or more points that are not physically connected. Distances can be short, such as a few meters for television remote control, or as far as thousands or even millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications...
    
     and Voice Access
  • Outlook
    Microsoft Outlook
    Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available both as a separate application as well as a part of the Microsoft Office suite...
    
     integration
• Calendaring
• Content Management
  • Files
• Records Management

Contrast the newer (2008) product Oracle Beehive

Oracle Beehive

Oracle Beehive is collaboration platform software developed by Oracle Corporation that combines email, team collaboration, instant messaging, and conferencing in a single solution...

, "the next generation of Oracle's enterprise collaboration technologies".