Oracle has stepped up its campaign to promote the combination of its software and Sun's servers as one that mounts a serious challenge to rivals.

In its efforts to gain some pre-finalised merger benefits from its association with Sun the database giant has set out a boast that it can beat rivals, including IBM, in the performance stakes with its 11g product running on a SPARC server.

Ever since the deal between the two companies was announced the Oracle boss Larry Ellison has maintained a line that customers will see improved performance from a jointly produced solution.

The TPC-C benchmark result is being used as a way of highlighting the benefits of using Sun hardware and Oracle software with Juan Loazia, senior vice president of systems technology at Oracle, using the results to target its rivals.

Oracle had been on track to seal the deal with Sun at the end of the summer after the tie-up was given clearance by the US authorities but it has got caught up in an EU investigation into the impact on competition.

Source: Microscope