1.

Oracle runs on many platforms, SQL on Windows only

2. Oracle includes IFS (Internet File System), Java integration, SQL is more
of a pure database

3. Oracle requires client install and setup (Not difficult, but very UNIX-like for
Windows users)

4. SQL is #1 in Cost/Performance and overall Performance, although Oracle

will refute that

5. Replication is much easier in SQL (I have been at clients where even the
Oracle consultant couldn't get it working w/oracle)

6. Failover support in SQL is much, much easier

7. JDBC support is much better in Oracle, although Microsoft is working on it

8. ODBC support in both

9. SQL is ANSI-SQL '92 compliant, making it easier to convert to another ANSI

compliant database, theoretically anyway (truth is every database has
proprietary extensions). Oracle is generally more proprietary and their main
goal is to keep their customers locked-in.

10. SQL natively supports ODBC, OLEDB, XML, XML Query, XML updates.
Oracle natively supports proprietary connections, JDBC. Not sure about XML
support though.

11. SQL Server is much easier to administrate, with GUI and command- line
tools.

12. Oracle requires add-ons for transaction monitors, failover, etc. SQL has
COM+, uses NT clustering and generally has everything built-in

13. SQL Analysis Services is included (A very powerful OLAP server). For
Oracle it is a separate purchase.