Open-Source Path Not an Option for Oracle, Exec Says

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November 8, 2004 (Computerworld) -- Oracle Corp. has no plans to create an open-source version of its database and file systems technologies, despite recent moves in that direction by competitors. Robert Shimp, Oracle's vice president of technology marketing, discussed these and other issues with the IDG News Service last week at Oracle OpenWorld Mumbai in India.

Computer Associates started distributing the Ingres database under an open-source license, and Sybase offers its database free to Linux users. Does Oracle need to do something similar for the open-source user? We have no plans to either open-source or make our products available for free.

Does Oracle still believe that the typical open-source user is price-sensitive and therefore can't afford Oracle products? We have extremely competitive pricing on our entry-level products, like the Standard Edition One product, that are at a list price of $149 per user. This price is highly competitive with open-source databases, which charge a great deal more for their support services.

Yet haven't companies like MySQL been cutting into your market share at the low end with open-source databases? MySQL does not claim the same database market as Oracle. Their product is used typically in the middle tier for storing data such as catalogs or Web sites and things like that. In fact, open-source database products are a good thing for Oracle, because they give a lot of users their first exposure to relational databases and give them an opportunity to learn about the technologies.

Why do you think companies like CA are open-sourcing databases? There are more than two dozen different database companies out there. Some are open-sourcing very old technologies in an effort to rejuvenate their business and grow shrinking market share. I don't see that as very viable.

Now that Red Hat has released Sistina Global File System under the GNU General Public License, do you need to continue updating your cluster file system? We believe that by providing the complete technology infrastructure, including the cluster file system, it is easier to install and maintain our products. The cluster file system is an important component of our clustering technology. In order to make it easier and simpler for our customers to install their products and maintain them, we want to provide a complete technology stack.

Robert Shimp, Oracle's vice president of technology marketing

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