This does compete somewhat with Amazon's SimpleDB offering.
This is getting interesting for Amazon and Google - with their offerings do they want to offer foundation compute/storage services, or services higher up the value chain (i.e. databases, whole apps)? If they push down the path of offering both, then they are potentially competing with their own customers (at the two ends).
1. SimpleDB doesn't really compete with Oracle. SimpleDB it isn't ACID, Oracle is ACID before it is anything else. Oracle has its own programming language, XML features, a very advanced SQL dialect, and many other features that SimpleDB lacks. Similarly, SimpleDB has a distributed replication feature that Oracle doesn't have.
It is interesting that Amazon uses Oracle AND Oracle BerkeleyDB. I wonder how Oracle TimesTen compares to BerkeleyDB for this use case.
There's a reason my Larry Ellison owns a Mig fighter jet, one of the largest yachts in the world, and has his own 747. He occasionally has the San Jose Airport stay open late, just so he can fly in after hours. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison
Well, nobody pays Oracle list prices. Well some people might, but Oracle will always cut you a deal. They would much rather sell you a site license for a price you can (just about) afford than have you go somewhere else.
I disagree... if this was around when our startup was in operation, it would have saved us $XX,XXX a month in infrastructure fees and we might still be around.
This is getting interesting for Amazon and Google - with their offerings do they want to offer foundation compute/storage services, or services higher up the value chain (i.e. databases, whole apps)? If they push down the path of offering both, then they are potentially competing with their own customers (at the two ends).
(As an aside) Amazon use Oracle in their own infrastructure: http://www.oracle.com/customers/snapshots/amazon-oracle-berk...