Oracle Laps Up Open Source DB

February 15, 2006: In a bid to build up its embedded database line, Oracle has purchased Open Source software company Sleepycat for an undisclosed sum.

According to Oracle, Sleepycat Software's Berkeley DB has an estimated 200 million deployments worldwide, making it the most widely used open source database in the world.

It is available under a dual public and commercial license, with the public license used in open source software such as Linux, BSD UNIX, Apache and OpenOffice all embed Berkeley DB technology.

"The embedded database market was projected last year to be just over $2 billion in 2005 and forecasted to grow to over $3.2 billion by the year 2009. This market is very diverse, and the technologies tend to be quite specialised.” says Carl Olofson of IDC research. “Sleepycat's Berkeley DB complements Oracle TimesTen and Oracle Lite, allowing Oracle to address a broad range of segments within the embedded DBMS market."

Oracle say that the addition of Berkeley DB to its line brings enterprise level support to those who need to embed a fast, reliable database at a lower cost.

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