Ellison has been building up faith in Sun's Sparc hardware line by saying Oracle "will invest more in Sparc than Sun does now," but no one is sure whether the message will take hold until Oracle can announce a definite roadmap for Sparc's future.
Oracle in the past has not been a hardware company, except for Exadata 1, a database and data storage machine produced on HP hardware, which it introduced a year ago. For Exadata 2, Ellison has dismissed HP as Oracle's partner and replaced its hardware with Sun's. Both Oracle and Sun continue to operate independently until the European Commission investigation is completed, expected sometime in January.
Oracle made some of its most specific claims of making headway in application software versus the company that it identifies as its chief rival on the application front, SAP.
In North America, Oracle application business grew 8% in the quarter, while SAP's declined 50%, Oracle president Charles Phillips said. In Europe, Oracle grew its business 3% while SAP, based in Germany, experienced "a negative 39% for SAP's most recent quarter," Phillips claimed.
Saswato Das, global director of SAP communications, responded: "We have not reported our figures for the same period and it's not an apples to apples comparison. Such comparisons made each quarter by Oracle are inaccurate at best and inappropriate in fact."
"It seems to me that SAP is the most mentioned company in Oracle earnings calls," Das continued. "What it suggests to me is that such an obsession with SAP is a sign of Oracle’s insecurity more than SAP’s vulnerability. We continue to be the market leader in business applications.
"Oracle President Safra Catz blaming her slow database sales on SAP is like Kanye West blaming Taylor Swift for his bad public relations," he said.
Oracle has been investing heavily in business application companies and Oracle Fusion middleware as an add-on sale to its strong database business.
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