The latest version of MySQL Workbench has a new migration wizard designed to provide an easy way to migrate databases from third party products to MySQL.

This first version of the wizard lets you migrate from Microsoft SQL Server and from databases supporting ODBC such as PostgreSQL.

Version 5.2 of  Workbench has also been improved with over 100 bug fixes and code completion in the SQL Editor. You can see the full list of bug fixes here.

Oracle has also released a MySQL for Excel plug-in that you can use to import data from MySQL to Excel for local analysis.

Oracle is hoping to tempt SQL Server users to MySQL because of the lack of licensing costs, claiming that MySQL works out up to 90 per cent cheaper to use than SQL Server.

However, most SQL Server users are wary of committing to MySQL because of the history of the Oracle takeover. Oracle acquired MySQL as part of the Sun takeover, and had to promise to continue development of MySQL in order to get the OK from the European Commission. That condition only lasts until 2015, which isn’t long in database terms.

Given the profits Oracle makes from its own Oracle database management server, there is still a question mark over what will happen once the time limit for the condition is reached.