Their pleasure comes mainly from believing that enterprise-level companies do not want to buy a PM solution from an application or database vendor, preferring instead to purchase mission-critical applications like PM from an independent company with domain expertise and a unique understanding of the space.

"A Goldman Sachs survey said that over 65 percent of CIOs prefer to purchase their BI and PM applications from an independent vendor," said Michelle Mollot, vice president of market strategy at Cognos.

First and foremost, Oracle will have to convince customers that the Hyperion application will not be optimized for the Oracle database environment and rather that it will be optimized for applications that are important to their company, especially because most large companies have a heterogeneous database and application environment that requires a high level of open and ERP-independent software.

The last thing a customer wants is performance management to be an accessory to a database or an application, adds Piet Loubser, senior vice president and director of market intelligence at Business Objects.

There appears to be universal agreement from Hyperion competitors that performance management must live transversely across all systems in a heterogeneous environment.