In a bid to expand the customer base for its database software, Sybase released on Tuesday a free, limited version of its software for deployment on Linux systems.

Sybase ASE (Adaptive Server Enterprise) Express Edition for Linux uses the same technology as Sybase's flagship ASE relational database management system, which competes against enterprise database software from Oracle, IBM and Microsoft. The new ASE Express Edition is free for both development and production use, though it is limited to one CPU, 2G bytes of RAM and 5G bytes of total data storage. The software can be downloaded from Sybase's Web site.

David Jacobson, Sybase's senior director of database and tools marketing, said the company is releasing ASE Express for free in hopes of attracting customers who will later upgrade to Sybase's ASE Small Business Edition, which has a license fee of $4,995 per processor, or Enterprise Edition, with a fee of $24,995 per processor. Support plans are available for ASE Express starting at $2,200 per year, but customers are not required to purchase a support plan.

"What we've found is that a lot of customers are turning to open-source databases because of tight budgets," Jacobson said. "But open-source databases are harder to use than conventional databases -- you have to download, compile, develop, deploy and manage them."

Sybase, based in Dublin, Calif., hopes those customers will instead turn to its software. Although Sybase ASE is available for Windows, Linux and Unix, Sybase is releasing only ASE Express for Linux. Jacobson said that's where the company sees demand.

"What we’re finding is people are moving to Intel-based platforms off Unix machines," he said. "Microsoft has entry-level products, but for those moving from Unix to Linux, there's a gap."

Forrester Research analyst Noel Yuhanna said the offering is a good way for Sybase to recapture some of the market share it has lost in recent years to Oracle, IBM and Microsoft.

"I think this will help customers have a second look at Sybase," he said. "It's definitely a good value proposition compared to open-source databases. Sybase is a very mature database, known for reliability, availability and performance."

Yuhanna's chief complaint about ASE Express is the tight limitation on data storage. For most customers, 5G bytes isn't enough -- projects using free, open-source databases tend to average 10G to 20G bytes, he said.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.