Red Hat launches database software

Red Hat has unveiled the database product reported by vnunet.com last week, a $2295 open source-based offering for departments or small to medium sized firms.

Also available on a $199 per month subscription basis, the software is based on PostgreSQL7.1. It is pitched as bridging a gap in the Linux database market between large enterprises that require specialised resources, and smaller, cheaper databases which are not suitable for ebusiness.

Red Hat's positioning means that it shouldn't clash swords with database giant Oracle in the short term, although analyst IDC has predicted that the market for database software running on Linux will grow from $42m in 2000 to $7.8bn in 2005.

Dan Kusnetzky, vice president of system software research at IDC, said: "Many organisations are seeking solutions, not toolkits. Red Hat, by packaging Linux as a database server, would certainly make open source software more attractive to organisations needing solutions."

You can read technical specifications of the product at Red Hat's website here.