Oracle President Charles Phillips kicked off Open World 2008 with an upbeat review of the company's recent achievements.

The Redwood Shores giant has managed to defy the global economic slowdown with first-quarter profits increasing by 28%. Net income for the last three months (ending August 31) rose to $1.08 billion, or 21 cents a share, up from $840 million or 16 cents a share a year ago. In addition, revenue has shot up by a staggering 18% to
$5.33 billion.

"Being a leader is a cultural thing for us - we want to win in every market", an exuberant Phillips told the large crowd.

Oracle's financial success has been attributed to its strategic evolution from a relatively small database firm to a middleware heavyweight that competes with industry leaders such as SAP. Indeed, the corporation has acquired 50 companies over the past five years and now offers a total of 3,000 products.

Oracle hopes to sustain its positive momentum with the release of Beehive, a secure online workplace reportedly inspired by Lotus Notes. The new middleware product was dramatically unveiled by Charles Phillips and Chuck Rozwat, Executive Vice President of Product Development. According to Rozwat, Beehive allows customers to collaborate across multiple operating systems on a unified platform that enables the sharing of documents, spreadsheets and calendars.

Oracle marketeers also claim that Beehive solves a number of problems plaguing enterprise-wide collab tools by unifying geographically dispersed teams and consolidating disjointed applications such as e-mail and instant messaging.

The latest middleware product is currently priced at $120 per license. However, potential customers may want to visit the Beehive open forum for a quick review of reported issues and subsequent fixes. X