Oracle 11G Launch On For July 11

We knew it was coming this summer. Now we know exactly when.

The Oracle Database 11g launch is on for July 11 in The Big Apple

Andy Mendelsohn and Chuck Phillips will host, according to invites emailed today.

Most of the Oracle noise in the past few years has been around applications. Guess that's what happens when your CEO writes out multi-billion-dollar checks for PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, and Siebel Systems.

But Oracle was built on the venerable relational database and remains the player to beat here. It is, however looking over its shoulder at Microsoft SQL Server which has made strides in the enterprise and the next version of which is promised for next year. (Yes, Katmai will be SQL Server 2008).

Oracle also contends with IBM DB2 in the cross platform database race. IBM, sources say, is chomping at the bit to announce a big customer win in the City of Los Angeles, which apparently plans to move from Oracle to DB2 "Viper." No one's commenting on that one though.