SAN FRANCISCO – This year’s Oracle OpenWorld hinted at the future of Primavera P6 and how the software will leverage Oracle technology now that Oracle has owned Primavera for one year.

The opening (Wednesday) keynote to the Primavera program outlined upgrades to Primavera P6 software version 7 and integration packs linking P6 to Oracle’s E-Business Suite and to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne.

When critical path management and project portfolio management are aligned with enterprise resource planning, everyone on a project team can view and contribute to schedules, noted Richard Faris, senior vie president of products at Oracle and a co-founder of Primavera Systems, which Oracle acquired in October 2008.

Faris, speaking in the Thursday keynote, outlined several other ways that being part of Oracle helps “spread the religion of project management,” among them Oracle middleware, technology, support and research and development. On that last point, Faris noted that Primavera now has 20% more dedicated developers than it did before the Oracle acquisition.

As for the Primavera P6 software road map, users can expect P6 certification on the Oracle 11gR2 database in the future, as well as further adoption of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g and a business intelligence publisher for enterprise report generation, noted Mike Sicilia, vice president of product development.

Future versions of Primavera P6 itself will aim to provide deeper features for power users, increased enterprise stability, increased adoption of open SOA standards and better integration with Oracle ERP software (and SAP).

The ultimate goal, Faris said, is to make Primavera P6 software so easy to use that no one needs Microsoft Project. “It’s time to put a bullet in its head,” he said of Project. “That’s the only way to kill a zombie.”