At an annual conference in San Francisco this week Oracle Corp declared the open war against International Business Machines Corp. Chief Executive Larry Ellison announced a $10 million prize to a company who would prove that IBM systems ran database software—which businesses use to store and sort through digital information—even half as fast as those from Oracle. IBM was also invited to participate.

"Ours is faster, theirs is slower; ours costs less, theirs costs more," Mr. Ellison said, adding that IBM's systems are also worse for the environment.

Actually, the tension between the two companies that used to be partners started when Oracle announced its plans to acquire Sun Microsystems. With this move Oracle wanted to reposition itself as a hardware maker, not only a software manufacturer. Thus, Oracle put itself in a direct opposition to IBM as both of them want to prove that it is their products that would be needed by the businesses. Previously, Oracle for a number of years had to rely on others’ technologies as it has no hardware making unit. IBM even keeps a team of engineers on Oracle's campus to ensure that Oracle's software runs well on IBM's systems. 

In August this year Oracle started an advertising campaign that claimed Oracle's software doesn't run as fast on IBM's systems as it does on systems from Sun. later in September IBM filed a complaint against Oracle with the Transaction Processing Performance Council alleging the ad information is not based on audited test results. Consequently, Oracle was imposed a $10,000 fine by the council.

So, the battle was in its rather full fling before yesterday’s announcement. IBM had its own plans about Sun that apart from hardware products also makes a number of popular software applications. When Oracle announced its Sun deal IBM started its subversive activity attracting Sun’s largest customers with special promotions.

Recently, Oracle announced its joint product with Sun, a database machine that combines Oracle's software for storing and organizing information with computers from Sun. IBM was not long in responding and launched the similar product on its own hardware.