Oracle9i Gets a Shot of Itanium

SAN FRANCISCO — It’s Oracle’s show, but the spotlight on Day One of its weeklong conference goes to Intel .

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip making giant said it was committing itself to Oracle’s software with its new Itanium 2-based systems and said it will be running Oracle9i Database on HP-UX by the end of the year.

Based on EPIC architecture, Itanium 2s are being heralded as the next-best replacement for RISC-based chips. Several OEMs are also looking to Itanium because it supports HP-UX, Linux and Windows operating systems.

“Intel and Oracle have done a lot of work together to make the products you use,” said Intel COO Paul Otellini. ” CIOs still want the best price performance, they want choice and they want servers that are scaleable and reliable. What we are offering is interoperable software architecture on 4-way to 128-way systems with partitioning headroom and our hyperthreading allows for that multitasking that is needed to run several applications at once.”

Otellini also toted Intel’s upcoming Banias mobile chip, which is the company’s push into wireless forays like 802.11 .

“Isn’t just about Web services, but wireless Web services and crating linkages between the mobile clients and servers,” said Otellini.

Intel also said it would be relesing a new 3GHz processor later this week.

Oracle chief marketing officer Mark Jarvis augmented Intel’s announcement with the launch of its Oracle Collaboration Suite. The software organizes and synchronizes e-mail, voicemail, calendar, files and search over the Web, fax, Microsoft Outlook, voice or wireless. For example, with the software in place, Oracle says users can forward their voicemail to their inbox or vice-versa.

“This is four times less the cost of Microsoft Exchange,” said Jarvis who pointed to Oracle’s staying power in tough economic times. “It’s a little bit like walking through the desert and Oracle is the largest water bottle for everybody.”

Jarvis also introduced Oracle Direct – a demo-ground service from Oracle’s telesales division that the company plans on marketing to potential customers who want to compare their systems against Oracle’s rivals.

In addition, Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle said its 9i Application Server Release 2 Developer’s Preview for Microsoft Windows on Itanium 2-based systems, is now downloadable for 64-bit Windows from Oracle’s Technology Network.

Oracle, which has never shied away from a street fight with Microsoft , says it’s software stack combination running on Linux, running on Intel chips is a faster, cheaper alternative to anything out of the Window’s camp.