Oracle is a company that is one of the top sellers of data base management systems. 8i is the current release of their data base. "i" stands for "internet". It's partly marketing hype, to associate the company with the current interest in the internet. However it also reflects a fundamental strategic direction that Oracle is following.<br><br>Personally, I always call Oracle 8i by the name Oracle 8.1.5 or 8.1.6. They are the same thing and frequently I need to know exactly what release level is installed. Oracle calls version 8.1.6 "Oracle 8i, release 2", but I think that's too cumbersome.