Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) boasted that it was able to beat IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) in database performance by using processors built by recently acquired Sun Microsystems. Company CEO Larry Ellison took the opportunity to really rub it in his rivals' faces.

Oracle said that by using a cluster of 27 computers running Sun's Sparc processors, it achieved a speed of 30.2 million transactions per second. This is faster than the latest speed balleyhooed by HP, and three times as fast as what IBM touted in August.

IBM and HP were not impressed. Rick Bause, spokesman for IBM, said that Oracle's "transparent attempt to attain benchmark bragging rights backfires by exposing just how underpowered and inefficient Sun systems are since they're telling customers they'll need 27 Sun servers to beat the performance of three IBM machines," reported BusinessWeek's Aaron Ricadela.

Server vendors are becoming more competitive as their offerings become more alike, Ricadela reports. Customers are less likely to remain loyal to one brand as products and designs become less defined. 

The heightened competition was evident in Ellison's unflattering words for HP upon announcing the Sparc performance numbers: "We think the HP machines are vulnerable. We think they're slow," Ellison said. "We're going to go after them in the marketplace with better software, better hardware and better people, and we're going to win market share."

As Lydia Leavitt at TechEye notes, Ellison may still be irritable about IBM and HP going after Sun's customers following its acquisition by Oracle.

For more:
- see Aaron Ricadela's article at BusinessWeek
- see Lydia Leavitt's post at TechEye

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