Still Waiting for Oracle XE 11g..

There are many Oracle XE/APEX 10G developers who have long been waiting for the 11g release. Updating Oracle XE to Oracle 10.3 and later APEX versions has been possible within certain limitations but the upgrade to 11g is long overdue.

Oracle describes Oracle XE as "..an entry-level, small-footprint database based on the Oracle Database 10g Release 2 code base that's free to develop, deploy, and distribute; fast to download; and simple to administer.."

Oracle XE has many benefits for ISVs, DBAs and particularly for Information Science Educators who need a free small footprint database for their undergraduate or graduate curriculum.

The Oracle XE Community has heard many ongoing rumors about release dates and new features. Upsizing database limits and memory utilization are at the top of the list along with support for the latest APEX release -v4.0.

Latest official word back at OracleWorld 2010 would be that Oracle XE 11g would be seen after the release of Oracle 11gR2. That time frame has come and gone and new discussions about whether the acquisition of Sun and MySQL has complicated and/or delayed support for and updated Oracle XE have surfaced.

It would be to the benefit of the Oracle and wider Database Community and Oracle to put on the fast track the release of Oracle XE 11gR2 with Apex 4 along with vastly increased memory and database size limits and native Database Console Support. This would bolster Information Science Educators, DBAs, ISVs and others interested in Database Centric Application Development and help put Oracle back on a competitive footing with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express Editions.