Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison and Salesforce.com chief executive Marc Benioff vowed to work together as the two firms kicked off a new partnership deal.

The long-time associates and rivals discussed their recently-announced collaboration effort with reporters and said that the two companies would not only integrate their products, but also potentially collaborate on additional efforts.

The early phases of the project will see Salesforce double down on its efforts to build its back-end infrastructure on Oracle Database. Benioff said that the Oracle platform, which has powered Salesforce.com since the company first launched, will continue to provide the basis for its CRM and platform as a service (PaaS) offerings.

“The Oracle Database has been a key part of Salesforce.com infrastructure from the beginning of our company,” he said.

“Now that oracle has focused on the cloud, we are delighted to commit to another 12 years.”

Relations between the two companies have not always been so rosy. Driven by an escalating competition in the enterprise computing space, Ellison and Benioff have famously butted heads on several occasions, including a heated confrontation at the 2011 OpenWorld conference in which both CEOs publicly criticized one another.

To help make piece, Benioff extended an open invitation to Ellison to attend the Salesforce.com Dreamforce conference this Fall, a gesture Ellison was quick to accept.

“We have always enjoyed working together and having fun,” Benioff said of the relationship with his former boss.

“Hopefully it will be the end of us getting too revved up at times.”

While neither CEO would provide details on future planned projects, Ellison suggested that Oracle could look to further integrate Java with the Force.com platform.

“This is an area where Salesforce.com and Oracle can explore,” he said, “and if it makes sense we will have another announcement and make all the developers happy.”