Faced with a tough, if not losing, battle for PeopleSoft, Oracle executives said Thursday that they were considering other acquisitions.

"PeopleSoft was the first and we hope to be successful there, [but] there's a number of other acquisitions we are looking at," Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said. "We think we'll have plenty of use for the cash." Oracle has about $8 billion in the bank.

Ellison said Oracle was looking for both organic growth in its existing businesses as well as acquisitions.

"I am not saying we are trying to be the software equivalent of General Electric, but I expect we are going to be doing a lot more acquisitions in the future," Ellison said on a conference call to discuss the company's fiscal third quarter results.

Oracle chairman and CFO Jeff Henley said the company thought it prudent to keep the cash reserves for potential acquisitions rather than pay a cash dividend.

Henley said Oracle had been "looking at a variety of areas" but didn't identify any potential takeover targets. It has expressed interest in BEA as well as reserve over the price.