Oracle is an MVCC database, while MySql and DB2 are traditional lockers. Unless InnoDB is written to MVCC semantics (how much work that requires, I don't know), MySql isn't an entry level Oracle. It's just another piece that's come along for the ride.
Incorrect. The InnoDB & Falcon engines use MVCC.
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/innodb-multi-versioning.html