Nope. Ellison went on to explain that Sun is going to help Oracle become a great “systems” company, not just a hardware or software company. He said his goal is to become the successor to the old IBM under Thomas J. Watson.

“Not Lou Gerstner’s IBM or Sam Palmisano’s, but when IBM was the dominant software company in the world and translated that to being the dominant systems company.” Ellison called that IBM, “the greatest company on Earth.”

He gave one other example, pointing to Cisco as “a great systems company.”

Just as Cisco’s systems “accelerate the Internet” Ellison said he thinks an Oracle/Sun combination can deliver systems that can be the backbone of enterprise IT operations. “We’re not interested in competing with Dell or HP running XP on x86,” said Ellison. “But banking, telecommunications and airline systems,” that’s the market he said Oracle after. .

And Ellison made it clear he wants to keep all of Sun’s hardware business going.

“We’re keeping everything: tape, storage, x86, Sparc, he said. “I’m not sure if for (the same price) we could buy IBM, HP or Sun (that) we wouldn’t pick Sun. Sun has fantastic technology, great microprocessor technology and leading tape archival storage.”

IDC analyst Jean Bozman told me afterward that she thinks the combination could make some of Sun’s systems more competitive. “Traditionally, Sun hasn’t always had the fastest hardware, but when you control the hardware and software you can definitely optimize those systems,” she said.

But Oracle’s Sun deal is in a holding pattern as it waits for the EU’s European Commission to approve the merger. The EC set a deadline of January, 2010 to issue its ruling.

Mounting losses

Ellison was careful not to say anything critical of the EC, noting they have a job to do, but the delay in approval is having a very real impact. “Sun is losing $100 million a month, we’d like to get this thing done,” said Ellison.

He said he thought the EC would okay the deal and that he would not consider spinning off mySQL even if the EC made it a condition of approval. In any case, he doesn’t think there should be an issue because the open source database is in a completely different market than Oracle.

“mySQL and Oracle do not compete at all. If you look at where we compete it’s with DB2, Microsoft’s SQL Server, Sybase and a long list of others. We never compete against mySQL, it addresses very different markets.”

He also brushed aside the marketing claims of HP and IBM that they’re scooping up Sun customers left and right.

“IBM said it’s got 250 customers from Sun. What does that mean? I don’t think there’s a single example of any customer who replaced all their Sun machines with IBM. Solaris is way better than AIX and Sun machines are faster than IBM’s and they cost less.” ‘

Ellison also emphasized that he sees IBM as its biggest competitor and said HP remains an important customer, noting Oracle will continue to tune its software for HP systems.

Zander snuck in: “But Sun systems will still be faster” as Ellison adroitly waited for the next question.

The Sparc Tank and five more years

The Q&A wrap up started with a question from way in the back from a very familiar voice. Sun’s former CEO Scott McNealy, an avowed hockey nut, pleaded with Ellison to buy the San Jose Sharks and drew some laughs with his suggestion the arena be renamed the Sparc Tank.

Zander lauded Ellison for his 32-year tenure at Oracle, perhaps unmatched by any current big tech company exec. And how long will he keep going? asked Zander.

Ellison boasted that Oracle exceeded projections in its recently completed five-year plan and is now starting another one. “I’ll go for five more years and see how it’s going,” he said.