Oracle sees first post-merger products in early '08

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Oracle Corp (ORCL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) will deliver in early 2008 the first major software products that integrate its recent acquisitions, starting with a new marketing product, its top executive said on Wednesday.

Chairman and Chief Executive Larry Ellison told thousands of customers at OracleWorld, the software company's annual user conference, that it would introduce a new generation of sales force automation based on existing Siebel software tools.

The new line of software, dubbed "Sales Prospector", will integrate with corporate customers' existing business planning systems, known as Enterprise Resource Planning software, he said, competing with rivals Salesforce, SAP AG (SAPG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

Salesforce spokesman Bruce Francis declined to comment on how Oracle's new product might affect Salesforce.com.

Oracle had previously declined to say when its first post- merger applications, code-named Fusion, would ship, other than to say it would be before the end of 2008, leaving many analysts to expect them late next year.

Sales Prospector is the first of three Fusion applications that will be ready in early 2008, Ellison said. The others are Sales References and Sales Tools.

The Sales Prospector software will suck up customer data sitting inside a company database and allow them to identify what products their customers buy and tailor sales and marketing pitches to them.

(Reporting by Eric Auchard in San Francisco and Jim Finkle in Boston)