Oracle to offer free database

zdnet ^ | Martin LaMonica

[N3WBI3]

Oracle intends to release a free version of its database, a reaction to the growing competitive pressure from low-end open-source databases.

The database heavyweight on Tuesday is expected to announce the beta release of Oracle 10g Express Edition (Oracle Database XE), which will be generally available by the end of the year. It is targeted at students, small organizations and software vendors that could embed the Oracle database with an application.

The latest edition is the same as other databases in Oracle's lineup but is limited in usage. It can only run servers with one processor, with 4GB of disk memory and 1GB of memory. Oracle on Friday offered a beta version of the new database for Windows and Linux on its Oracle Technology Network Web site.

The new low-end edition is aimed squarely at free and open-source alternatives to Oracle's namesake database, said Andrew Mendelsohn, senior vice president of Oracle's server technologies division.

Open-source databases have caught on steadily in popularity over the past few years with corporate customers and Web developers.

MySQL is the most popular open-source database among developers, according to a recent Evans Data study. IBM earlier this month released a free version of its own DB2 database as part of a PHP development package. And Microsoft intends to ship a free version of SQL Server 2005, called Express, next month.

"There is definitely a market there (for low-end databases) and a demand. And we want them to be using Oracle and not MySQL or SQL Server Express," Mendelsohn said. "It's definitely a reaction to the market interest."

About a year and a half ago, Oracle introduced Oracle 10g Standard Edition One, a version aimed at mid-size companies where Microsoft has many customers. That database is limited to two processors and cost $149 per user.

By introducing a free entry-level product, Oracle intends to get more developers and students familiar with its namesake database, Mendelsohn said. Those customers, Oracle hopes, will eventually upgrade to a higher-end version.

"Even though the database is initially free, standards progress and those university students who are playing with the database today will eventually be working at corporations and making product decisions," he said. "We want to have mind-share with those people."

The Express Edition database can be distributed with other products. It will be available through Oracle's developer network and include a Web-based administration console development tools.

Separately, Mendelsohn offered comments on what Oracle intends to do with InnoDB, a storage engine for the MySQL database that Oracle acquired earlier this month.

He said Oracle intends to extend a contract with MySQL where the InnoDB storage engine is packaged with MySQL.

"There are all kinds of possibilities we're exploring," Mendelsohn said. "You might be seeing it showing up in Oracle products."

[softwarecreator]

I know this is off-topic, but I wanted to get some opinions on this.

I am currently working on an internet project for a large manufacturing company.  You are not going to believe this, but they want me to do 2 versions of the same project.

One is on Linux using PHP & JSP with MySQL.

The other is in .Net using SQL Server.

I tried to explain that I could do one version of the PHP/JSP using Apache and Tomcat which would then be able to be run on both OS's, but they would not listen to it ... some "consultant" talked them into this.  Luckily, I could use the same HTML for both projects, but it's still a nightmare doing this thing twice.

Talk about a waste of money.  Ever hear of this being done before?

[N3WBI3]

Not yet but it is being severely deteriorated.

Funny they have not cut me a break lately but if you think mysql is hurting their market share you are wrong. MSSql has come very far and is stepping in the enterprise realm a place where mysql nor postgre are even close.

That only run on his for-sale product.

IE will correctly and legally install on a Linux box running WINE from the Internet, as will media player, and even outlook express..

If Oracle was only giving away utilities that required the purchase of their database your analogy might apply, but obviously and not surprisingly it doesn't.

See the image above before you decide to be arrogant..

[N3WBI3]

Giving each developer their own database isn't a wise long term decision.

Giving them a sandbox environment (mssql) works well for me and they have been much more productive after it was implimented. No youre 100% right that doing this mean forcing them to play nice in DEV so there are not poblems in test qa or prod but thats only a metter of dicipline.

[N3WBI3]

Nope thats a first for me, do it one and do it right and it should not matter what environment you want to put it on..

[Golden Eagle]

Bottom line is the market for saleable database software has shrunk, else Oracle would be selling their low end database on the Oracle name alone instead of giving it away at no charge. While this may be great for those that want all their software for free, it's not a good sight for those that prefer to make a profit, or even a living off it. Small customization jobs are going to be all that's left for programmers, as the freeware mob slowly destroys the current titans of the industry.

[N3WBI3]

Bottom line is the market for saleable database software has shrunk

Business software maker Oracle Corp., of Redwood Shores, says it had net income of $2.7 billion or 50 cents per diluted share on revenues of $10.2 billion for its fiscal year ended May 31. That compares to net income of $2.3 billion or 43 cents per diluted share on revenue of $9.5 billion for its previous fiscal year.

[N3WBI3]

%s/no youre/now you are

[Golden Eagle]

I tried to explain that I could do one version of the PHP/JSP using Apache and Tomcat which would then be able to be run on both OS's

You could use .NET for both too, since the server side would do all the processing then send the client the HTML for display. It might require some editing of your machine.config or web.config files, but by default you'd be supporting the largest market share browser IE while not losing much if any compatibility with the rarer browser breeds. As far as having to build 2 completley different back ends? Insane, that's the whole reason you have web applications, to avoid specific client requirements.

[Golden Eagle]

Are you fishing for my IP with that pic? At least it looks like I learned your name, which I promise not to use maliciously, if you promise not to divulge my IP.

[Golden Eagle]

Giving them a sandbox environment (mssql) works well for me

Another poor decision, if you still somehow want distributed developer DB's from Microsoft you should be using MSDE's...

[N3WBI3]

GE if I was fishing gor your IP I would have sent it to you in a mail as it is I know everyone's IP who vies this page not just you.

[N3WBI3]

well I do what works for me and its a wonderful world where we can disagree..

[Golden Eagle]

I just find it halarious despite your fanatical anti-MS bias you've been paying them for developer DB's you could have gotten for free ROFL>>>

[Golden Eagle]

Well just keep it private since I'm not running anonymizer on this notebook and I promise I won't leech your site.

[N3WBI3]

GLad to provide you with entertainment, have a nice night..

[chronic_loser]

I have never claimed to be a guru, but it is really embarrassing to have to admit that I did not know autofs worked with remote devices! Boy, do I feel stupid!

[chronic_loser]

BTW you should beable to use either gnome or kde to browse for smbshares but once they are autofs they are treated as local disk so far as your scripts go..

Yeah, as far as the gui interface, I actually have the icons on the desktop. It was running the script for a cron job that had me stumped. Thanks so much for the link to autofs. It is interesting that I can also use autofs to plug in a portable usb drive for "take home" backup (critical to a business like mine).

I wonder why this little widget is not talked about more. It works great here on my home machine (Mepis) for accessing usb thumb drives.

[evilC]

*If* you cared about finding GE's IP address you could look for hits that come from the my comments page. GE will be the only person to hit that graphic from the my comments page (because you pinged only him), everyone else will hit it from this page.

... Assuming you cared about GE's IP address.

[N3WBI3]

I think he was speaking tongue in cheek about it; there are plenty of other ways to go about it if I want someone else's IP without them knowing I was doing it and I hope he does not think if I wanted to covertly get his address I would be so obvious about it..

[evilC]

Yeah, but ... but how did he get your name?

:)