Oracle Pounces on Sleepycat

Oracle has purchased database maker Sleepycat for an undisclosed sum.

Database giant Oracle announced the acquisition on Feb. 14, saying it would add Sleepycats Berkeley DB to its line of embedded databases.

The buy, which marks one of a trio of potential open-source database purchases expected by Oracle, could signal a shift in its plans for the embedded database space, which includes numerous specialized products and is expected to generate several billion dollars worth of potential revenue over the next few years. Oracle is also said to be eyeing JBoss and Zend Technologies.

“Sleepycats products enhance Oracles market-leading database product family by offering enterprise-class support to customers who need to embed a fast, reliable database at a lower cost,” Andrew Mendelsohn, senior vice president for Oracle Database Server Technologies, said in a statement.

Sleepycats Berkeley DB is said to be the most widely used open-source database with an estimated 200 million deployments, Oracle said. The market opportunity presented by the embedded space is expected to grow from $2 billion in revenue in 2005 to $3.2 billion in 2009, according to IDC data cited in Oracles statement.

Oracles embedded database product line also includes its Oracle Lite for mobile devices, and Oracle TimesTen, designed for high-performance, in-memory database applications.

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