Oracle's 10g database ready for download

The Oracle 10g wait is over, at least if you are a preferred customer of Sun Microsystems or HP.

Oracle let a pair of downloads for its new database slip onto the Web just ahead of a Tuesday conference call to discuss the product. As of this moment, Solaris (64-bit/SPARC) and HP-UX developers are taken care of with build 10.1.0.2. Windows and Linux editions of the database are expected to follow in due course.

Exact delivery dates and pricing for the official, polished 10g release are expected to arrive at the Tuesday event.

Oracle is under pressure to cut the price of the Standard Edition One - or low-end version - of 10g, if it hopes to apply pressure on both Microsoft and IBM. Microsoft currently has SQL Server 2000 priced close to $5,000, while IBM sells an Express edition of DB2 for $4,000 per processor.

Last year, Oracle trimmed the price of its Standard Edition One database to $6,000, but one report from IDG News Service says the new Standard Edition One for 10g will come in at $5,000.

Database darling James Niccolai at IDG also reports that Oracle may bundle its Real Application Clusters (RAC) software with the midrange Standard Edition 10g database.

The high-end version of the Oracle database comes in at around $40,000. ®

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