Oracle Considers Supporting Competing Databases

Oracle will certify that its iFlex and Retek applications will run on IBM's DB2 database as well as Oracle's database, and it is actively considering whether its future Fusion applications will be engineered to work with DB2 as well. But CEO Larry Ellison said Wednesday that any competing databases Oracle supports must be able to run the thousands of tests that certify that Oracle's applications will work with that database. Ellison says IBM is capable of that and so is Microsoft, should Oracle decide to support its SQL Server database.

But databases with small market shares, such as Sybase Inc. and open-source databases, such as PostgreSQL and MySQL, needn't apply, Ellison said in a question-and-answer session with the press following his Oracle OpenWorld keynote address.

At Oracle OpenWorld Monday, Oracle President Charles Phillips indicated that Oracle would spend the next six-to-nine months discussing Fusion priorities with customers; those conversations will determine whether it's important to have applications that can run on DB2.

Oracle's plans for Siebel Systems Inc., which Oracle is acquiring for $5.85 billion, and its applications, have been a hot topic at Oracle OpenWorld this week in San Francisco. Asked if Oracle would retain the code of Siebel's Nexus project, which was aimed at producing components for pre-built business processes, Ellison said it might not. "We can reproduce code pretty quickly" for a new application, Ellison said. What's more important, he said, are the application screen flows and user-interface elements captured in the Nexus approach. Some of them may be brought forward into the Fusion applications, he said.

Ellison repeatedly downplayed Oracle's growing competition with applications vendor SAP. "I think the application business is much more complex than just Oracle and SAP," he said, citing the number of companies that produce vertical-industry applications in banking, health care, pharmaceuticals, energy, and other industries.

Now lets see where ORACLE'S boat sails as its also sponsoring AMERICAN CUP team .