Unlike the market for mainstream databases, which is dominated by IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle, the fragmented embedded database sector has a large number of players led by InterSystems, Progress Software, Sybase, and Pervasive Software, although no vendor has more than a quarter of the total market. Not that IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle are absent from the scene: All three offer slimmed-down versions of their databases for embedded and mobile applications.

And vendors have been busy, despite the sales slowdown. During the summer, Gupta Technologies LLC launched SQLBase 8.0 with support for Microsoft's Transaction Server. Last month, InterSystems began shipping Cache 5, a new release of its database software with real-time analytics capabilities and built-in support for Web services.

At the same time, Microsoft debuted SQL Server 2000 CE 2.0, a new release of its minidatabase for mobile applications. And last week, Pervasive Software unveiled version 8.0 of its namesake database with improved deployment and administration capabilities and a range of performance enhancements.

Looking to the near future, Borland Software Corp. later this month will debut InterBase 7.0 with symmetric multiprocessing capabilities. This fall, IBM will unveil release 8.0 of its DB2 Everyplace with new encryption features for improved security.

Most vendors focus on specific segments of the embedded database market. FairCom Corp.'s C-Tree Plus, for example, is particularly strong in the market for databases with a small footprint (generally 100 to 300 Kbytes) that is deeply embedded in things such as industrial controllers and automobile braking systems. Sybase's SQL Anywhere database is especially popular for building mobile applications.

InterSystems' Cache is widely recognized as the leading embedded database for health-care applications. This month, Molecular Pathology Laboratory Network, which conducts advanced molecular testing for cancer and infectious diseases, will go live with a laboratory information system built around Cache 5.

The software will essentially run the lab, CIO Kenneth Billings says, tracking orders for laboratory tests and producing reports on the results. The lab chose Cache because of its capacity to handle the large volumes of data the lab's genomic tests generate, he says.

A key difference between embedded databases and mainstream databases such as Oracle9i and IBM DB2 is that the latter are designed for maximum performance and require a lot of care and feeding by database administrators. But embedded databases are designed to be self-sufficient and require little or no administration. Low cost and ease of use are the two things users of embedded database software demand, Aberdeen Group's Kernochan says.

Self-administration was the main reason health maintenance organization Kaiser Permanente installed software from Royal 4 Systems Inc. last year to track the purchase, storage, and installation of office furniture and medical equipment in its new medical facilities in Southern California. The software has a Progress database at its core.