ORAtips 4CIO Corner ® Page 1 Page Oracle ’s Presence in the Embedded Systems Software Market: An Overview By Darrick Addison Editor’s Note: Regular ORAtips had recently acquired Sleepycat, the to provide benchmark, best practic- contributor Darrick Addison explores company behind the open source es, etc. They will enjoy close develop- embedded systems built to meet real- Berkeley DB, which is an embedded ment links with Oracle R&D centers time constraints with a combination database system. Oracle Corporation in the US and will reside in existing of special purpose hardware and soft- Asia Pacific embedded technologies Oracle development centers in those ware tailored to the system’s require- VP Mark Barton said, “With this, countries.” ments. As Darrick notes “Oracle has we plan to move beyond the enter- been growing its embedded systems prise systems where we’ve tradition- Sleepycat Berkeley DB business in Asia Pacific (APAC) over ally been, and make a serious move Oracle has announced the addition October 2006 Volume II Issue 4 October 2006 Volume the last five years, and already counts into data management for consumer of Berkeley DB to its embedded data- some of Asia’s leading companies as devices.” base product line, which includes customers.” Oracle Lite for mobile devices and Oracle TimesTen for high perfor- mance in-memory database applica- Introduction tions. Oracle has entered the embedded systems market in Asia Pacific and “Sleepycat’s products enhance Japan by launching an embedded Oracle’s market-leading database business unit (EBU) for this region, Oracle plans to product family by offering enterprise- including India. The Oracle EBU class support to customers who need plans to establish licensing agree- embed its entire to embed a fast, reliable database ments with independent software at a lower cost,” said Andrew Men- vendors (ISVs) and original equip- range of products delsohn, senior vice president, Oracle ment manufacturers (OEMs), allow- Database Server Technologies. ing them to integrate Oracle software including database, directly into end-user devices such “We’re very excited to join the as handsets, home appliances, and application service, world’s largest enterprise software automobiles. The company sees India company and the industry’s lead- as a potential market for embed- business ing database company,” said Mike ded systems. The embedded systems Olson, CEO of Sleepycat Software. industry is worth approximately $25 applications, etc. “Sleepycat’s products, customer billion worldwide with high demand base, and proven business model, expected from North Asia and India. combined with Oracle’s tremendous Oracle’s embedded strategy for APAC expertise, complementary technology, includes setting up a dedicated task and resources, will allow us to better force across the APAC region and in serve the needs of our customers and Journal key markets. the open source community.” “For FY2005, Oracle’s embedded The target markets for Oracle EBU systems revenues grew 60 percent According to Carl Olofson of IDC’s include 3G, in-the-home, in-the- worldwide, and more than 200 per- research, “The embedded database vehicle, and telecom. Oracle plans cent in APAC. Barton also announced market was projected last year to be to embed its entire range of prod- the setting up of innovation labs in just over $2 billion in 2005 and fore- ucts including database, applica- China, Japan, Korea, India, and Sin- casted to grow to over $3.2 billion by tion service, business applications, gapore to drive development and the year 2009. This market is very etc. In a bid to extend its embedded testing of its embedded systems. The diverse, and the technologies tend database product line, the company labs will help us work with partners to be quite specialized. Sleepycat’s ORAtips ORAtips ORAtips.com ORAtips © 2006 Klee Associates, Inc. ORAtips 4CIO Corner Berkeley DB complements Oracle “Sleepycat never had an arrange- Page 2 Page TimesTen and Oracle Lite, allow- ment with them,” he said, adding ing Oracle to address a broad range that “there is no change in the rela- of segments within the embedded Oracle’s chief tionship with MySQL, and that the DBMS market.” two companies continue to negotiate executive, Larry an extension to the existing MySQL/ Sleepycat Software’s Berkeley DB InnoDB relationship.” is the most widely used open source Ellison, stated database in the world with deploy- Uppsala, Sweden-based MySQL ments estimated at more than 200 earlier this week confirmed that negotiations with million. Berkeley DB is distributed Oracle are ongoing and repeated under a dual license model, i.e., that “the its previous belief that the fact that available under a public license and InnoDB is licensed under the GNU also available under a commercial company does not GPL protects its users’ investment in license. Well-known open source the technology long-term. projects such as the Linux and BSD October 2006 Volume II Issue 4 October 2006 Volume make acquisitions in UNIX operating systems, Apache In a statement MySQL also revealed Web server, OpenLDAP directory, areas where it does that it is working “internally and with OpenOffice productivity software, partners on a number of alternative and many others embed Berkeley DB not think it transactional engines” and that it technology. plans “to provide more details about can be the number our storage engine strategy and road- Berkeley DB vs. MySQL: map at the MySQL users’ conference Market Trends one player” in April.” The Redwood Shores, Califor- nia-based database and enterprise Upsetting the MySQL user base software giant, has denied that its would certainly be a strange way for purchase of Sleepycat was designed Oracle to build its reputation in the to impact open source database rival While Oracle Lite serves the mobile open source software market, and MySQL AB and maintained that it is database space and the TimesTen Shimp maintained “its something the focused on the bigger picture. technology (the company picked up company intends to do via Sleepy- in June 2005) serves real-time data- cat.” “Oracle has long been in the embed- base requirements; Berkeley DB ful- ded software business but we’ve had fills the need for edge applications “Berkeley DB is one of the preemi- a gap where the Sleepycat Berkeley with embedded database functional- nent brand names in the open source DB product fits perfectly,” the com- ity, Shimp explained. “Every appli- industry,” he said, noting “the code is pany’s VP of technology marketing, cation has unique requirements, so embedded in a wide variety of open Robert Shimp told Computer Busi- you need a range of options.” source projects, including Linux, ness Review. FreeBSD, the Apache Directory Serv- Oracle also acquired the InnoDB er, and OpenOffice.org.” Oracle’s chief executive, Larry Elli- storage engine along with Innobase son, stated earlier this week that “the Oy in October 2005, leading to a “That provides us with additional company does not make acquisitions potential problem for MySQL given access in the open source industry Journal in areas where it does not think it that InnoDB was its database storage and we can of course tap into that can be the number one player”, and engine of choice. user community and the open source Shimp said the “Sleepycat acquisi- community and learn how to build tion is designed to enhance Oracle’s Recent rumors had indicated that an open source business,” he said. position beyond embedded data- MySQL was working on a develop- “We are involved not only with Linux bases. Berkeley DB is number one ment deal with Sleepycat to come up but also Apache, but each project is in its [embedded database] market. with a replacement, raising questions unique,” he added. “We want to move We intend to be number one or two about Oracle’s intentions. Shimp into that market and learn more.” in the embedded software space in denied that anything untoward was general.” going on, however. ORAtips ORAtips ORAtips.com ORAtips © 2006 Klee Associates, Inc. ORAtips 4CIO Corner Shimp added, “the entire Sleepy- According to Oracle Corporation Over the next 12 months, Barton Page 3 Page cat engineering team would remain Asia Pacific embedded technologies said “the Oracle EBU will focus on intact and that Oracle would look to VP Mark Barton, “Oracle’s world- embedding its infrastructure soft- make use of its embedded software wide embedded systems revenues ware, including products such as and open source expertise to grow its grew 60 percent in fiscal year 2005, Database 10g, Oracle Lite, Sen- position in both markets.” ended May 31, while its Asia-Pacific sor Edge Server (RFID), Oracle embedded systems revenues grew TimesTen, and Oracle Application Last week Ellison outlined the com- more than 200 percent in the same Server 10g.” pany’s intention to position itself for period.” growth in the open source software “As the embedded systems mar- market. “We are moving aggressively Other vendors vying for a piece of kets mature, he added, Oracle plans into open source,” he told the 2006 the embedded systems pie include to embed more of its product portfo- Credit Suisse Global Software Con- players such as Microsoft, Sybase, as lio including its flagship application ference. “We’re embracing it; we’re well as several Linux start-ups. suite, Oracle E-Business Suite.” not going to fight this trend. We think if we’re clever we can make it work Oracle has been gearing up to join Conclusion October 2006 Volume II Issue 4 October 2006 Volume to our advantage.” the bandwagon. Earlier this month, Mark Barton, VP, Oracle’s Embed- the database giant acquired open- ded Business Unit, Asia Pacific & The company has also been linked source software company Sleepycat Japan said, “Real-life applications of with the potential acquisitions of Software for an undisclosed sum.