"They came to us with a problem that we could easily solve," Williams said. "We decided that as an educational institution, there was no reason to charge them on a commercial basis."

Conway said allowing the university to use the software would benefit Quest as students familiar with its applications would eventually use it in the workplace.

"I was able to prove the benefits in allowing educational access to their software, namely the concept that what the students use in education, they will use in practice," he said. "It is a partnership that I am willing to promote and develop as long as it is possible."

Toad for Oracle is a database development and administration tool for Oracle SQL applications that adds functionality to query building and execution, database object creation and modification and PL/SQL and SQL development debugging. It also improves data importing/exporting and schema comparison.

Conway said the software will be used by postgraduate and undergrad students across four of its IT courses and campuses.