Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Oracle releases 11G today!

Oracle Corp. released the new version of its database software, adding security features and support for multimedia files to its biggest-selling and most-profitable product.

The program, called 11g, is being introduced at an event today in New York. The new version lets customers track changes made to databases and encrypt data, Redwood City, California- based Oracle said today in a PR Newswire statement.

Oracle makes about two-thirds of its software sales from databases and related programs, and is counting on the new features to encourage clients to upgrade. In a survey of 400 customers, the Independent Oracle Users Group found that 35 percent plan to buy the new software within a year.

``It's usually an 18-month cycle for people to upgrade,'' Ari Kaplan, president of the Chicago-based customer group, said in an interview. ``Most people expect a solid release, and don't see a reason to wait.''

Shares of Oracle, the world's third-largest software maker, rose 11 cents to $19.83 at 9:36 a.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. They had advanced 15 percent this year before today.

The price of the database software is based on the number of processor chips used to run the program. Oracle often offers discounts of 20 percent to 80 percent, depending on the customer, said Donald Feinberg, an analyst with Gartner Inc. in Sao Paulo.

Oracle sells its software primarily for computers running the Unix and Linux operating systems. The company last year had 47.1 percent of the $15.2 billion worldwide database market, compared with 21.2 percent for International Business Machines Corp. and Microsoft Corp.'s 17.4 percent, according to Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rochelle Garner at rgarner4@bloomberg.net

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