next 12 to 24 months.
Other open-source databases available include Sleepycat, Firebird and Derby.
Felt around the industry?
So far, executives at the leading three database companies--Oracle, IBM and Microsoft--discount
the impact that upstart companies are having.
Yet at the same time, all three of the heavyweights have in the past year introduced a low-end edition of their database meant to appeal to small- and medium-size businesses. Oracle, for example, has a database that costs US$149 per user, which is limited to one server CPU but is the same as the company's high-end version.
Microsoft, which has a free database, has also added a number of typically high-end features, including business intelligence tools, to the Workgroup edition of its product, which costs US$3,899 per processor.
In a recent interview with CNET News.com, Oracle President Charles Phillips said that open-source databases are a "net positive" on Oracle's own database business, which is doing very well.
"We think open source has (played) an important part in introducing new customers, who we wouldn't have known about, to the idea of databases," Phillips said, noting that about 40 percent of new open-source database customers did not previously use a database. "When they want to do something more serious...they very quickly jump onto Oracle."
Noel Yuhanna, database analyst at Forrester, expects that there will be more competition among database companies as new market entrants look to lure away customers of entrenched database providers.
Open-source databases are having the biggest impact on the low end, where a "good enough" database can serve many of a company's needs, he said.
Yuhanna predicted that there will be more companies looking to offer support services, which are crucial to corporate adoption of open-source products. Already, SourceLabs and SpikeSource offer subscription-based support services around open-source development middleware, including databases.
"Competition is good. It just means that the market is about to take off," Yuhanna said. "Certainly we're seeing a lot of interest in open source. These (new vendor) initiatives are adding a bigger and larger solution focus."
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