Shares of Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL) are trading slightly lower today as traders prepare for the company's third quarter earnings release. The company is scheduled to report its recent quarterly numbers today after the market closes.

When the company announces its earnings, analysts are expecting to see earnings excluding items of 30 cents on sales of $5.4 billion, up from 25 cents a share and $4.41 billion in revenue reported in the same period a year ago.

Despite the weak market conditions and economic slowdown, Oracle has so far been able to beat or at least match analysts' expectations when it has reported earnings. For the current quarter, the company also expects strong earnings results. This might be due to the company's recent acquisitions whose maintenance revenue help offset weak earnings coming from its customers affected by the tumbling economy.

This week, enterprise software developer, Cognos Incorporated (Nasdaq: COGN), agreed to pay $339 million for Applix, Inc. (Nasdaq: APLX), which develops financial performance management software. It's a red-hot area -- with dealmaking from biggies like Oracle Corporation (Nasdaq: ORCL) and SAP AG (ADR) (NYSE: SAP).

Another upstart in the space is Adaptive Planning. I had a chance to interview the company's CEO, William A. Soward.

Can you provide some background on Adaptive Planning?

A: Adaptive Planning makes it easy for midsized companies and divisions of large corporations to automate their key financial processes, including budgeting, forecasting, monthly and quarterly reporting, and ad hoc "what if?" analyses.

We present a new alternative that "bridges the gap" between spreadsheets and traditional enterprise software. Adaptive Planning is optimized for companies that have outgrown Excel but lack the personnel, time, or capital required to deploy complex and costly enterprise BPM or business intelligence applications. By automating their planning and reporting processes, companies are able to save time and money and make better, more informed business decisions-ultimately improving competitiveness.

Adaptive Planning is also optimized for the way small and midsized companies do business. We provide pre-defined templates to help small companies jumpstart the planning process, and deliver the powerful modeling and key features that mid-sized and larger companies need. And, whether customers choose to deploy their solution on-demand or on-site, they receive new product features on a quarterly basis.

Finally, Adaptive Planning is committed to being an excellent business partner for mid-sized companies. We have annual renewal rates of over 90 percent, and ranked among the top four vendors for customer satisfaction in a recent industry-wide survey by industry analyst firm BPM Partners.