Oracle to offer free version of database software

Business software maker Oracle Corp. will make available Tuesday a free version of its flagship database software, amid intensifying competition in the database-software market, the company said Monday.

"It's basically free to download, free to develop, and free to deploy," Oracle Vice President of Technology Tim Payne said. "It's exactly the same code line as our other versions."

The free version of the 10g software will be called Express Edition. The maximum database size will be 4 gigabytes, a relatively small amount.

Oracle's Standard Edition, which costs $15,000 to install on a single server, is designed for databases of up to 500 gigabytes.

Oracle's databases run on the Windows, Linux and Unix operating systems. They are designed to organize large amounts of data, like customer records or store inventories...

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...a/13048260.htm

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Download here:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/sof.../xe/index.html