OSN is just the latest time Oracle has taken aim at the collaboration market, coming after InterOffice, Oracle Collaboration Suite and Beehive.

Beehive received a particularly high-profile launch at Oracle's OpenWorld conference in 2008, but since then has seemed to in the marketplace.

Some of the product's users recently in an official Oracle forum, questioning whether an expected version 2.1 would ever be released.

An Oracle spokeswoman declined to comment on that prospect.

While not "Beehive in the cloud," OSN does use some of Beehive's technology, Oracle confirmed during the webcast. But officials did not respond to a question posed about whether OSN would supersede Beehive.