"Lacking the branding, or the optimized storage layer that Oracle built their Exadata product family around, this is in no way an 'Exadata' product,' as some have been calling it, Kobielus said in an email to Computerworld. "Oracle needed a low-end DB appliance to serve as an entry ramp for customers in the [small to mid-size business] segment that need a [high-performance] DBMS acceleration platform," Kobielus said.

"Oracle realized it needed a database appliance for the broad business market, and it's targeting this new one at existing Oracle shops that would like to migrate their DBMS licenses to a more optimized platform at an affordable price," he said.

The product is also likely to appeal to those who are involved in enterprise database consolidation projects and need an easy-to-implement system to consolidate to, Kobielus said.

"It's not Exadata at all," added David Menninger, an analyst at Ventana Research. "It's a packaging of the Oracle database on Oracle hardware with the advantages that it is pre-installed, preconfigured and supported as a single bill of materials."

The primary competition for the product would likely be Microsoft's SQL Server technology which is extremely popular among small and mid-size businesses, Menninger said.