Oracle did not give a reason for the price increase, but Sam Higgins, a consultant at Brisbane-based Longhaus offered his take:

Higgins said the tools Oracle sold as "add-ons" to its database products are proprietary (incompatible with other databases such as Microsoft SQL and IBM DB2) and tend only to provide the lowest common denominator in terms of functionality.

...

"You only have to look at the success of Google Maps applications and [mapping vendor] ESRI, or see what types of apps are available on the iPhone, to see that geo-spatial applications are very interesting to people right now," he said.

"But I would again assume that anybody that truly relies on this information - urban planning or resource sector companies, main roads departments, would rather use a geo-spatial specialist than an add-on product from Oracle."

Alex Gorbachev, vice president of the Asia-Pacific region for database management services outfit Pythian noted that when they were first launched the "add-ons" were weak and low cost. Now they are real workhorses. He went on, "There was an amazing amount of features announced with Oracle 11G that were available on separate licenses. Clearly Oracle is relying much more on the packs for revenue."

Another explanation suggested in the IT News article? Oracle raised the prices so IT managers could haggle over price and look good when getting discounts.

Oracle just got the OK from shareholders last week to acquire Sun.

- IT News (Australia)