The software maker Monday announced the release of SQL Developer 1.1. This latest version of the free database development tool allows users to browse and manage three non-Oracle databases: Microsoft Access, MySQL and SQL Server.

Oracle is also integrating its Migration Workbench software with SQL Developer. When released later this year, that offering will provide a single tool allowing users to both manage non-Oracle databases as well as import data from them, according to Mike Hichwa, vice president of software development at Oracle.

"It makes perfect sense to combine the two. After all, why would you need two PL/SQL editors?" Hichwa said.

Since its initial release last March, SQL Developer has been downloaded 394,000 times, according to Sue Harper, an Oracle product manager, making it the third-most-downloaded application from Oracle.com.

With its graphical user interface and its ability to browse database objects, run SQL statements and scripts, edit and debug PL/SQL statements and run reports, SQL Developer is ostensibly targeted against Quest Software Inc.'s popular TOAD database administration and development tool, said Donald Burleson, an Oracle consultant and author in Kittrell, N.C.