Oracle's Phillips: Our software is integrated but open

IDG News Service - SAN FRANCISCO -- Oracle Corp. President Charles Phillips showcased a raft of new technologies today -- chief among them a server virtualization offering called Oracle VM -- during the opening keynote at the company's OpenWorld 2007 conference here.

Phillips, one of the software vendor's two presidents, repeatedly said that Oracle's aim is to create "best of breed" applications that are integrated into a unified product stack yet are based on open standards and therefore can be extended by users.

"Instead of having proprietary integration, we wanted an open middleware stack," Phillips said. In an apparent reference to business applications archrival SAP AG, he added that Oracle even wants to help its customers integrate its software with "third-party applications made in Germany, for instance, if that's needed."

During the keynote session, Phillips and other speakers detailed a range of new products, including Oracle VM (download FAQ). The virtualization software supports Linux and Windows guest servers and is based on the Xen open-source hypervisor, to which Oracle has added a Web-based management console. The company plans to make Oracle VM available on Wednesday as a free download, while charging for support.

Among the other products announced today is the Application Integration Architecture Foundation Pack, which contains tools that customers can use to model composite business processes that straddle multiple applications. Oracle also introduced a trio of "process integration packs" for users in the communications industry; the packs provide prebuilt connectors between its Oracle Financials and Siebel CRM software, as well as billing and revenue management applications for communications vendors.