Oracle gains on Citigroup alliance

Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) was up 12 percent Tuesday after announcing an agreements with Citigroup. It also announced a deal with Compaq at Comdex late Monday.

Shares in the provider of software for e-business were up 3 1/16 to 27 13/16

Oracle's agreement with Citigroup (NYSE: C), calls for the financial institution to:

• integrate Citibank's payment capabilities into Oracle's market exchange;
  
• transact Citigroup's internal spending through Oracle's open marketplace -- OracleExchange.com;
  
• implement the Oracle Internet Procurement solution internationally and market OracleExchange.com services to its corporate client base.

The deal also calls for Citigroup to embed its financial services into Oracle technology and market Oracle's exchange services to its suppliers and corporate customers via the Oracle/Citigroup co-branded web site. Financial details of the agreement were not released.

"The world will end up with a few giant B2B exchanges -- this is one of them," said CEO Larry Ellison, in a statement. "Citigroup and its 100 million customers form the nucleus of a B2B exchange that should become one of the first of these global giants."

Oracle and Compaq Computer Corp. (NYSE: CPQ) also announced at Comdex late Monday that they will team up to sell server computers preloaded with the new Oracle9i Application Server software that can run business Web sites. The new product will be available next month.

The software will be available on Compaq ProLiant server computers, and be marketed as a combined "appliance" which should be more reliable and less expensive to maintain than servers configured by the buyer.

Oracle plans to do similar deals with server makers Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq; SUNW) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HWP), Ellison said. >