Overall, the goal is to deliver a social network "without a huge level of noise," Kershaw said. "The largest fear of any executive implementing any social network is that it's going to create a lot of non-productive noise."

OSN will be available sometime in calendar year 2012, Oracle said during the webcast. The cloud version will come first, with an on-premise edition arriving later.

The two options will be mostly similar but some differences will apply. "There are some features that make more sense on-premise," Kershaw said. "Tight integration with telephony makes more sense there than in the cloud."

OSN will first be made available with Oracle's new Fusion Applications, but can "absolutely" be used on its own, as well as integrated with other applications and processes, according to Oracle. One point of OSN is to "socialize" a company's other applications, Kershaw said.

However, it is compatible only with Oracle's database.