Oracle's Ellison debuts technology for faster databases

By Noel Randewich

REDWOOD CITY California (Reuters) - Oracle Corp (ORCL.N) Chief Executive Larry Ellison on Tuesday launched "in-memory" technology for speeding up data analysis in a bid to beef up demand for his company's software products.

The in-memory features, which Oracle has been talking about for months, allow for faster database queries and transactions as companies collect, store and analyze growing amounts of information across the Internet.

The technology will go on sale in July as an add-on to Oracle's existing databases, Ellison said at an event at the company's headquarters.

"It's the ability to run most of your data, all the data you frequently access, in memory and access that data basically instantaneously," Ellison said.

With rivals like SAP (SAPG.DE) offering their own products that rely on memory chips, instead of slower hard drives, as much as possible for heavy number-crunching, Oracle's new offering is seen as a must-have addition to its software lineup.

"It's another whistle and bell that Ellison and Oracle can talk up to the customer base," said FBR analyst Daniel Ives. "It's all about heavy-duty analytics, queries, big data. That's what customers are focused on."

For decades, Oracle has been seen as the gold standard for database technology, but it is under attack from smaller, aggressive companies like Salesforce.com (CRM.N) and Workday (WDAY.N) offering competitive software and Internet-based products at prices that often undercut Oracle.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich; Editing by Leslie Adler)