Thomas Kurian says renewal rates since the acquisitions were higher than in the previous year Santa Clara, Calif. – Oracle’s new customers, gained with its acquisitions of Siebel and PeopleSoft, are very satisfied based on renewal rates, Oracle Senior Vice President Thomas Kurian said at the Software 2006 conference on Tuesday afternoon.The company acquired Siebel in 2005 and PeopleSoft in 2004. PeopleSoft in 2003 had merged with JD Edwards. Using the metric of renewals of support agreements with Oracle, these new Oracle customers are satisfied, with renewal rates since the acquisitions being higher than they had been in the previous year, said Kurian, who is Oracle senior vice president of development for the company’s middleware platform.“In general, our customer [base] is very happy,” Kurian said. Oracle, Kurian said, is focused on its Fusion strategy, which unifies its database, middleware, and applications to provide a next-generation suite of software. But Oracle still is developing new releases of its PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, and Siebel applications, Kurian said. These new releases are targeted for delivery in the next calendar year.Earlier at Software 2006, Dave DeWalt, president of the EMC Software Group, noted changes in the industry and in EMC as well. “The company is no longer only a hardware storage company, but offers hardware and software services,” he said.EMC also is spreading development around the globe, with operations in places such as Israel, China, Russia and Canada, in addition to the United States. “We’re trying to take advantage of most locales around the world,” DeWalt said. “[Offshoring] has really become mainstream now,” DeWalt said. “The software companies that can do this best will win.” EMC has made acquisitions such as Legato and is now the seventh largest software company, he noted. Software Development