NEWS Oracle announced the availability of its Oracle 10g database on Tuesday and cut prices, in an effort to gain more customers among midsize businesses.
As previously reported by silicon.com's sister site CNET News.com, Oracle released the Unix and Linux versions of its Oracle 10g database and dropped the price of its entry-level database to about $5,000 per processor, matching the cost of Microsoft's SQL Server 2000 database. A Windows version of Oracle 10g is slated for completion in a "few weeks," according to company executives.
The database giant also dropped the entry price point for the Real Application Clusters (RAC) feature to $15,000 per processor, the price of Oracle's midlevel database offering, called Oracle Standard Edition. Clustering software, used to run an application across many connected servers, was previously only available as a $20,000 option for the high-end Oracle Database Enterprise Edition product, according to the company.
Oracle 10g, a significant upgrade to the company's flagship product, introduces "grid" capabilities to lash several hardware servers together for better performance and reliability. The clustering software of RAC serves as the basis of the grid features in Oracle 10g. In October of last year, Oracle introduced a new product called Oracle Standard Edition One, which it sold for $5,995 per processor for servers with only one processor. The pricing change that comes with the introduction of Oracle 10g will bring Oracle's cheapest database cost to $4,995 per processor for up to two processors.
IBM, too, in October of last year added a pricing option for its DB2 Express, offering its database for about $4,000 per processor on a server with up to two processors. Oracle, IBM and Microsoft dominate the market for corporate databases, garnering the majority of dollars spent.
IBM and Oracle's licensing changes were a direct assault on Microsoft's SQL Server database and its base of customers in midsize companies and departments of larger businesses. Microsoft's database sales also rely heavily on partners such as value-added resellers and system integrators, which build packaged applications on SQL Server.
Martin LaMonica writes for CNET News.com
