Oracle Rolls Out New Capabilities for Midsize Businesses

Oracle announces additions to its Oracle Accelerate program, which ports enterprise solutions to midsize organizations with a need for business intelligence and other applications. While solidifying its own product line, Oracle has also been making aggressive moves against IBM and other competitors in the systems arena.

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Oracle announced Sept. 22 the launch of new capabilities for midsize businesses through its Oracle Accelerate program, including new Accelerate Solutions, Oracle Business Accelerators, financing options and deployment methods.

Begun three years ago, the Oracle Accelerate initiative aims to port the company's enterprise solutions to the IT infrastructure of midsize organizations, giving the latter access to powerful applications such as business intelligence and transportation management.

The new Oracle Accelerate solutions include Business Intelligence, Enterprise Performance Management and CRM on Demand. They join Oracle Applications and Business Accelerators, which the company had already been combining through the Accelerate initiative into targeted and deployable packages for solving midsize businesses' problems.

While Oracle Accelerate was originally launched as primarily an on-premises product package, it will now be offered via other deployments, including hosting by Oracle On Demand or by a third party.

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Oracle has also launched a Website, midsize.oracle.com, as a streamlined resource for its offerings for midsize companies.

In 2009, Oracle has also focused on platforms for larger enterprises, including Fusion Middleware 11g, the latest upgrade of its middleware platform. Oracle Middleware 11g includes new elements such as social networking, along with features that add layers of operational insight and automation to business processes via a number of Oracle tools.

Oracle is also increasing its own size with its April acquisition of Sun Microsystems, a deal worth roughly $7.4 billion. Following on the heels of IBM's own attempt to purchase Sun for over $7 billion, the deal will allow Oracle to more fully use Java and Solaris in its products.

However, Oracle CEO and founder Larry Ellison told an audience at the Churchill Club in San Jose, Calif. on Sept. 21 that Sun continues to bleed cash at a rate of $100 million per month, and the sooner that particular deal is closed, the better.

Ellison confessed during the same appearance that his current goal is to beat IBM in the systems arena.

"We have a deep interest in the systems business," Ellison said. "Great systems vendors ship a hardware-software combination that allows them to be instrumental in the acceleration of the Internet."

He added, "We've already beaten IBM in software. Now we want to beat them in systems."