Oracle Corp. chief executive Larry Ellison said yesterday that Oracle will deliver an in-memory database product “well in advance” of enterprise applications rival SAP.
Ellison’s remarks, at the end of a conference call with financial analysts to discuss the company’s strong first-quarter results, came in response to a question about SAP’s efforts in in-memory technology and what they might mean for Oracle. In-memory technology enables the processing of large amounts of data at speeds much faster than conventional relational databases.
Ellison said that although he has been dismissive of SAP’s in-memory aspirations, “I never said we didn’t believe in in-memory databases. I said it was peculiar for SAP to compete in databases. Oracle has had under development for some time an in-memory product that it will deliver before SAP,” he said. “Just like we beat them badly in middleware, they will have less of a chance in database.”
At its Sapphire user and partner conference in May, SAP announced its High Performance Analytics Appliance, which will incorporate in-memory technology. The appliance, being co-developed with HP, is scheduled to be available by the end of this year. SAP also has incorporated in-memory technology into other products.