Oracle has sketched out a five-year road map for Sun's Sparc-based servers, hoping to reassure customers about the future of the platform and reverse a pattern of declining sales.

Oracle, which spent $US7.4 billion to acquire once-high-flying Sun Microsystems, has been losing prominent Sun technologists since shortly after the deal was forged. The acquisition was supposed to give Oracle control not only over such technologies as Sun's flagship Java implementation and Sun's Sparc hardware, but access to engineers and developers who were nothing short of celebrities in their field. But it has not worked out that way.

Oracle on Wednesday tried to answer the question that has vexed much of the technology industry since it announce its acquisition of Sun Microsystems last April: How will Oracle make the ailing systems and software vendor a profitable part of its business?

Oracle plans to broaden its range of virtualization offerings, thanks to a number of applications obtained in the Sun Microsystems acquisition, said Oracle chief architect Edward Screven.

Oracle will pare back Sun Microsystems' server lines and move to a build-to-order model to cut costs and get the hardware company back to profitability, Oracle executives said on Wednesday.

Sun and Fujitsu upgraded their Sparc Enterprise M3000 server, equipping it with newer hardware to deliver faster performance, the companies said on Tuesday.

Oracle's tilt at Sun Microsystems was opportunistic, Larry Ellison admitted to financial analysts yesterday, but Sun is now a critical component new five year growth targets that aim to more than double the company's sales to well over $50 billion.