“Heeding the call from small and mid-market businesses (SMBs) for enterprise-calibre functionality at a lower cost, Oracle Corp. on Wednesday announced a new entry-level database that it claims offers SMBs the best of both worlds.

The Redwood Shores, Calif.-based company unveiled the Oracle Standard Edition One — a single processor version of its Standard Edition database. Despite a price tag of US$5,995 per processor for an unlimited number of users — US$195 per named user with a minimum of five users or a US$979 entry point — Oracle assured users that Standard Edition One comes with the same traditional performance, reliability and security of the Oracle Database. The main difference, according to the firm is this offering includes simplified management and installation features.”