Oracle remains mum on revenue figures

More than 20,000 customers and partners are in attendance -- the largest turn out to date, according to conference organisers.

The enterprise software company has lined up some of the biggest chiefs in technology to speak at the conference, including Dell's CEO Michael Dell, HP CEO Carly Fiorina, Sun Microsystems' CEO Scott McNealy and Intel CEO Craig Barrett.

There is a session dedicated to Oracle's much publicised US$7.3 billion bid for PeopleSoft, where executive vice president Chuck Phillips will answer questions about the proposed deal, which is still pending regulatory approval.

The company will also remain quiet on Oracle revenue, a spokesperson told the assembled press. Instead the main focus for the company is touting it new database technology, called 10g, which it claims is based on grid technology.

Customers and partners will learn about Oracle Grid Computing and the new products launched, which include Oracle Database 10g, Oracle Application Server 10g and Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g.

As IT departments try to rationalise on the number of servers they run and manage applications and balance their computing load, Oracle hopes to tap into this market opportunity.

The vendor claimed its grid computing products would handle peak loads, and reduce the time and cost of running IT operations by "pooling industry standards servers and storage into an adaptable infrastructure that can meet changing business demands".

Michael Dell, CEO and founder of Dell Computers, also discussed the advantages of standardising on to "low cost" server technology. Dell claimed that most IT departments allocate 80 percent of their budget on foundation costs, such as keeping the lights on. It estimates only 20 percent is spent on strategic investments. "If you're spending 50 to 80 percent on foundation costs, you're really feeding the dinosaurs -- they can eat truckloads of meat everyday," he said.

Siobhan Chapman travelled to OracleWorld in San Francisco as a guest of Oracle.