Oracle gets cosy with HP between Microsoft sheets

Oracle is preparing to sleep with its enemy Microsoft, following its decision to enter the Windows NT arena in conjunction with Hewlett Packard.

The database giant has put its differences with Microsoft aside, to develop a strategy that will link it to the increasingly popular Windows NT in the enterprise market.

HP and Oracle have established a joint initiative to sell the database vendor's products into the high-end NT enterprise market. Oracle will make use of HP's existing channel partners, which will be trained to provide the added level of service required by customers of Oracle on NT.

The pair will jointly recruit resellers to bundle Oracle products on HP servers and integrate Oracle and NT systems.

Sergio Giacoletto, Oracle vice president of strategic alliances and technologies for EMEA, said the market had dictated the firm's need to focus on NT servers. He believed the alliance would offer additional options to resellers which are increasingly experiencing shrinking margins.

'We are seeing commoditisation of the industry and a constant clash between corporate resellers. With the increase in NT applications and therefore an increase in sales of line-of-business applications, we will see resellers becoming more like systems integrators,' he said.

Terry Ernest-Jones, analyst at IDC, described Oracle's decision as inevitable, considering the growth of Windows NT over the past two years. 'Oracle would be cutting off its nose to spite its face if it didn't buy into it.'

HP already has similar NT-based alliances with enterprise resource planning software vendors such as Baan and PeopleSoft, using its NetServer NT mid-range machines as the platform.

Oracle has also said that its NT-based alliance with HP was not exclusive.