Oracle has promised users it will ‘protect, extend and evolve’ the products inherited from the 10 companies it has acquired in the past 12 months.

The software giant’s OpenWorld international user conference in San Francisco last week was the company’s first opportunity to reassure customers of PeopleSoft, Siebel, Retek, JD Edwards and its other recent purchases, with 35,000 delegates assembled.

Oracle president Charles Phillips promised lifetime product support for JD Edwards, PeopleSoft and Siebel users.

‘Oracle cares about its customers. People want to know that if they implement a product and it’s crucial to their organisation, they will get continuity, so we’re bringing this in to give an unusual level of support, unequalled in the industry,’ he said.

Analyst Ovum says using the user conference to woo recently purchased customers is a big departure for Oracle, which normally reserves the annual event for major product announcements.

‘The focus of Charles Phillips’ speech was support, which is a new thing for Oracle,’ said Ovum analyst David Mitchell.

‘If you come to an Oracle event you normally get them telling you where they are heading. Support in a headline presentation is new for this corporation,’ he said.

But by the time chief executive Larry Ellison spoke at the end of the conference, the audience was left in no doubt that the company is keeping its focus, when he announced that Oracle was committing $2bn (£1.13bn) to research and development (R&D) over the next two years.

Ellison says a key R&D goal is a deepening commitment to open standards in Oracle’s Fusion software suite.

‘Open standards are extremely important to us; they have always served us well, and they have always served our customers well,’ he said.

The company also announced that it will seek formal certification on IBM’s WebSphere system, which is widely used in conjunction with Oracle applications.

‘Using Java programming, the Fusion system will be capable of integrating with others, so you can connect it to the IBM WebSphere system or any other,’ said Ellison.

‘A lot of people thought we were going into the application business to coerce our customers into using our middleware and database, and yes, we’d love for you to pick our middleware and our database, but we think those products have to compete on their own merits of price, performance, reliability and security.’

Ellison also hinted that Oracle may soon open its software to work with
any database on the market.

‘There is a pending decision as to whether we are going to certify non-Oracle
databases for the Fusion applications, and we will go through a consultation with our customers. At the moment I don’t know, it’s at the toss of a coin,’ he said.

But Ovum’s Mitchell believes that Ellison was unlikely to mention the possible change in strategy if there weren’t already moves in that direction going on inside the software vendor.

‘I think it is quite likely there will be support for other databases coming through within six months,’ he said.