Better late than never: Last Thursday (Jan 31 2013), Oracle released the Mac OS X version of the database instant client version 11.2 (11gR2).

Before there was only a client for version 10.2 available.

Oracle 10.2 was released in 2005, version 11.2 in 09/2009.

I call the Instant Client the real client for Oracle RDBMS, in terms of what a client really needs (while Oracle calls it the other way round). Just the fundamental libraries, a few binaries, and optional an SDK. No installer and no Oracle home path.

On an Oracle blog Christopher Jones asks for feedback in case you use the client. Oracle needs to justify the resources for the OS X bundle.

While their company aquisitions mainly seem to be customer-base than technology driven decisions, their knowledge on own customers is so limited?

I don’t think so - Oracle knows quite well what their customers are using. Even without market researches or surveys: the Oracle user groups, conferences, support sites, etc.

Anyway, I wrote Christopher an email telling him I’m happy with the new client…