Oracle Corp has announced an expanded marketing and product development relationship with Sequent Computer Systems Inc. The intention of the new relationship is to enhance Oracle’s use of Sequent’s parallel processing architecture and enable Oracle and Sequent to offer more integrated and complete database solutions for the business market. Under the agreement, Sequent has ordered $1m of Oracle database products, to be offered by its sales organisation. The agreement is non-exclusive and in all cases, Sequent customers will sign a maintenance agreement with Oracle for on-going support. Oracle will use a Sequent Balance B21 system as one of its platforms for Unix program development, beginning with application development tools and then migrating to on-going Oracle relational database development on the B21. The multiprocessor NS3200 box will also be used to run Oracle’s Premium Support Platform, an automated system for tracking the status of requests for product support. Sequent is using Oracle to automate several of its corporate functions, including marketing and field sales, and parts of manufacturing. There will also be an exchange of engineers, with Oracle supplying a consulting engineer to work in the Sequent sales outfit, assisting in pre-sales and post-sales support efforts and Sequent putting a full-time engineer at Oracle’s headquarters in Belmont; he will join Oracle’s development team and ensure that the parallel processing capabilities are fully used. All Oracle products have been ported to Balance systems, including version 5.1.