ZDNet is reporting that Oracle is due to announce a stripped-down, free database. Why? To try to defend against the rising tide of 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.In other words, it mostly stinks, but at least it's free! What Oracle apparently hasn't understood is that free, as in price, is just one part of the open source puzzle. But it's not necessarily the most important one.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.
My prediction? This move will be completely forgotten. Few to nobody will use it. And, 6-12 months from now, Oracle will have to give a real response to the open source threat it faces. Tossing a lightweight database in front of a fast-moving market that wants free, open, and killer databases just won't fly.
You can do better than this, Oracle.
Posted by Matt Asay on October 31, 2005 05:18 AM
