1.   He developed a niche with universities and publishers and began building database products for news companies.

2.   In December, the company released a new version of its flagship database software product to fix some technical shortcomings and catch up with Oracle in some features.

3.   Microsoft has a powerful database product of its own, based on a revamped version of an earlier Sybase program.

4.   Oracle has been struggling with a slowdown in U.S. sales of its principal relational database product.

5.   Oracle officials said the company plans to roll out a new low-end database product, dubbed Project X, early next year.

6.   Previously it has said that sales of older database products fell steeply because it concentrated marketing efforts on new products.

7.   The acquisition by Oracle, located in Redwood Shores, Calif., follows an earlier purchase of database products from Digital Electronics Inc. in Nashua, N.H.

8.   The applications include features to help customers tailor their database products to their needs.

9.   To bolster the performance and capabilities of its flagship database product, Informix bought Illustra in February.

10.   Workgroup software is a low-end product for Oracle, though analysts said Microsoft might target the market for other database products.