On November 7th, in Hanoi, Oracle launched the Oracle® Database 10g Express Edition (Oracle Database XE). The Beta version of Oracle Database XE is now available and offered free of charge to companies in the Asia-Pacific region.
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Mr. Ho Thanh Tung, introducing Oracle Database XE |
According to Mr. Ho Thanh Tung, General Director of Oracle Indochina: “This new version of Oracle Database 10g provides application developers, database administrators, and students in Vietnam with a starting database system to develop and leverage their applications. This product is also completely free for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and hardware manufacturers to distribute or combine with their applications and products. Now, all customers and users have the opportunity to access and use this product from Oracle without incurring any costs. In addition, they are supported and can ask questions through the internet or phone free of charge.”
Mr. Ho Thanh Tung also stated: “Our customers and partners in Vietnam – including educational institutions, government agencies, and commercial companies – have expressed the need to use Oracle’s database at low or no cost for research, practice, and application development. We meet that demand with the Oracle Database XE product. Smaller customers and students using Oracle Database XE can later upgrade to higher versions of Oracle as their needs grow.”
Oracle Database XE is built on the code base of Oracle Database 10g Release 2 and is fully compatible with the family of Oracle database products. Users can start with a small model and choose to upgrade to other versions of Oracle Database 10g as their development needs arise, and migrate applications to other versions without any changes.
Mr. Tung further mentioned: “With Oracle Database XE, students and independent application developers can take advantage of free software and online support to start developing and testing on this leading database system without incurring costs. I believe that Oracle Database XE is a product that educational institutions will find essential for enhancing the IT skills of their students.”
Oracle Database XE is currently available on 32-bit Windows and Linux operating systems and can be installed on any hardware that supports these operating systems. As a free product, Oracle Database XE has the following characteristics: It uses a maximum of 1 CPU or a single dual-core processor; utilizes under 1 GB of memory; is limited to one user at a time; and stores up to 4 GB of user data.
With the introduction of Oracle Database XE, Oracle is effectively expanding its database portfolio to six products: Oracle Enterprise Edition, Oracle Standard Edition, Oracle Standard Edition One, Oracle Personal Edition, Oracle Database Lite, and now Oracle Database XE. These six products provide varying levels of database functionality to best meet customer needs.
An IDC report shows that Oracle led the integrated database market in Asia with revenues of $1.2 billion in 2004, holding a market share of 37.8%, including maintenance revenue and new software sales in the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan.
The Beta version of Oracle Database XE is available for download online at: http://www.oracle.com/technology/xe (approximately 150 MB). Additionally, Oracle provides an online forum for users to register for free to discuss topics related to the use of Oracle Database XE. The forum is conducted and moderated by Oracle database experts at: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/xe/forum.html.
Le Quang
