(Nikkei BP Group)
(No.1 High-Tech News Site in Japanese)
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| Oracle Japan Cautious on Commercializing Linux-based RDB
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November 25, 1998 (TOKYO) -- Oracle Corp. Japan, the largest supplier
of relational database products, is cautious about commercializing its
relational database products to run on the Linux operating system.
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Many software companies in Japan, including Sybase K.K. and Informix
K.K., will market their own versions of such products.
Sybase's Japan unit will start providing free of charge by the end of
November a Linux version of its Adaptive Server Enterprise 11.0.3, the
firm's mainstay relational database product targeting large-scale systems.
Users will be able to download the version from a Web site of a sales
agent of Linux.
However, the version 11.0.3 software is not the latest product. It is
a version of the previous generation. Sybase will not provide support
for the free product, company officials said.
Informix's Japan unit will start shipping Informix Dynamic Server 7.3,
a Linux version of a relational database product for large-scale systems,
by the end of December. The price will be decided later. And Informix
Dynamic 4GL, a Linux-based development tool, will be provided in the
second quarter of 1999.
In September, the company started shipping Informix-SE, a relational
database product targeted at small and midsize systems.
Also, Computer Associates Japan Ltd. is expected to ship a new version
of INGRES II, which will run on Linux. Shipments will start as early
as March 1999. In the United States, Computer Associates International
Inc. released the beta version of the product in October. IBM Corp.
will begin shipments of a Linux-based DB2 Universal Database within
1998 in the U.S. market, while IBM Japan Ltd. has not yet decided on
commercialization of the product.
Meanwhile, in late October, Oracle Corp. Japan started offering Oracle8
Server for Linux 8.0.5 for free to a limited number of customers.
However, the company is cautious about commercializing the product, in
part because it is for evaluation purposes, company officials said.
Oracle may commercialize the product upon the release of Oracle8i R8.1,
which will be shipped in the first quarter of 1999, based on evaluation
results, the officials said.
The company must carefully address the commercialization effort because
it is serious about the diffusion of Linux, the officials said. For
that reason, it will not distribute a Linux version of its relational
database products in large volumes.
Related story: Linux
Surfaces As Alternative to Windows NT
(Nikkei
Computer)
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