Oracle has again extended maintenance support for customers of its 8i database on many major platforms, this time until 2005, giving firms another year to migrate to 9i or 10g.

Experts said that the move would protect Oracle's lucrative revenue stream for maintenance work, and also showed the supplier recognises that many firms are still committed to the five-year-old database. Oracle is also likely to encourage 8i users to move straight to its 10g database, which supports grid computing.

The database giant has extended Error Correction Support (ECS) on the Oracle 8i database version 8.1.7 and 8.1.7.x until 31 December, 2004 for Windows and most recent Unix releases. However, companies currently running 8i on older platforms including OS/390 will see support terminated on the original deadline of 31 December of this year.

Oracle will also offer Extended Support (ES) until 31 December 2007 and Extended Maintenance Support (EMS) until 31 December 2006.

In a research note, analyst company Gartner said a large number of firms running Oracle 8i are struggling to upgrade, even though Oracle announced two years in advance that it planned to end ECS in December 2003.

Many companies have not migrated to 9i because they lack the time, resources and funds to test and complete a migration, said Gartner. The analyst firm added that customers' concerns had intensified since Oracle announced its plans for 10g.

Gartner said it expected that through 2004, Oracle 8i database customers may experience some delays in getting bug fixes because the core Oracle engineering team no longer focuses on older versions of Oracle's database.

Betsy Burton of Gartner said the extended support would be welcomed by users. "Oracle's challenge was that getting its customers to move from 8i to 9i had been very slow," Burton commented. "A lot of customers have migrated between 40 and 50 percent of databases to 9i, but a number of production installations continue to run pre-9i releases."

Ronan Miles, chairman of the UK Oracle User Group, said that migration from 8i to 9i had not been as rapid as Oracle probably hoped and the company might try to persuade users to leapfrog direct to 10g.

"Oracle has recognised that a large proportion of its customers are still on 8i and need support," said Miles. "The firm also needs to ensure that a lucrative revenue stream is preserved."

In a separate move, Oracle has recently confirmed that it will continue to fight to acquire rival software company PeopleSoft, by extending its bid for a fifth time, until the end of the year.

Oracle began its battle to acquire PeopleSoft in June this year and has since raised its offer to $19.50 a share.

"We are as committed today as we were when we first announced our offer," said Oracle spokesman Jim Finn.