Hewlett-Packard Japan Ltd. and Oracle Corp. Japan announced Thursday that they have formed a comprehensive alliance to promote Internet business in Japan.

The partnership follows strategic business alliance projects between their parent companies in the United States announced in August and September.

The two Japanese companies will jointly promote businesses, including the development of "E-services" -- next-generation services on the Internet cultivated by Hewlett-Packard -- and sales of software for managing customer relations.

To nurture electronic services, they also plan to establish a technology development center, which will have 10 engineers, and look for other partners.

Chikara Sano, president of Oracle Corp. Japan, told reporters Thursday that the partnership will take advantage of the scale of the two firms' combined forces to offer prospective Internet services that require "megaservers," which deal with a large volume of data at high speeds.

Hewlett-Packard Japan President Masao Terazawa said that while the two companies have been jointly carrying out business since the early 1990s, the comprehensive alliance on the Internet services will have an impact on the market.