Database company Oracle Corporation will not dump PeopleSoft's products if it is successful in its hostile bid for the company, according to Oracle chief executive Mr Larry Ellison.

Speaking at Oracle's annual European user conference in London, Mr Ellison was responding to media reports that some PeopleSoft customers fear rival Oracle will drop PeopleSoft applications and push customers to switch to Oracle.

Oracle has tabled a hostile $6.3 billion (€5.45 billion) offer for PeopleSoft that has generated a flurry of concern among some customers as well as several US state attorneys general, who held a conference call to discuss the bid yesterday.

The State of Connecticut filed a lawsuit last week to stop the takeover bid on antitrust grounds. The state is in the middle of a $100 million implementation of PeopleSoft software.

The chief executive of PeopleSoft, Mr Craig Conway, is a former senior executive of Oracle.

"We think the offer we have outstanding is very good, and very good for the shareholders," said Mr Ellison.

He stressed that Oracle would support and improve existing PeopleSoft software, including an older version of its main application suite, which PeopleSoft itself said it would only support through the rest of this year.

Oracle also took out full page advertisements in newspapers yesterday to appeal directly to shareholders.

"We're not going to kill the products," Mr Ellison said. "What we said is that we will not actively market PeopleSoft products for new customers. But we will continue to sell and support them for many, many years to come."

He added that Oracle would "give \ the offer" to move to Oracle e-business software "and make it price neutral".