RE: News.

>> So how big a market share does DB2 itself command? They don't say.
>> Big
>> deal, so IBM-Informix have slightly more market share than Oracle.
>> If
>> Oracle had bought Informix the shoe would be on the other foot.
>> Again, big
>> deal!

What's news is that a few years ago many pundits had written DB2 off for dead and decided that Oracle was The Thing. If IBM is creeping up on Oracle it generally means that IBM has reversed a significant trend -- and probably that Oracle has blown a good thing.

The numbers are also interesting because new license revenue is a good indicator of who is switching over or starting up new systems with the product. Oracle's being behind in new licensing bodes ill for them in the next few years as they loose the ongoing licensing and support fees. It also hurts when selling to suits because the product has less "momentum" and IBM will certianly be telling everyone about how well they have turned DB2 around.

It's also vindication of sorts for commercial linux vendors, since IBM is now doing their best to hork linux on anyone that'll listen and is doing a rather nice job of integrating DB2 into linux platforms. This helps give the suits something solid that runs on linux, backed by Big Blue and does their jobs well. Uncle Larry, on the other hand, is mercurical enough that noone really trusts his "vision" of linux taking over the corporation; IBM the suits are willing to trust on this one.

It's also good news for data warehousing in general, since Red Brick may become a product again; which would be good for linux since it tends to make a nice data warehousing platform (on the right hardware). This will give people a choice, at least, and save us from having Oracle shoved up our snoots for tasks it does poorly just becuase it's Oracle.

I'm certianly not going to run around in the streets naked celebrating over the news [for which my neighbors are lucky] but it is worth noting and is probably pleasant news for most of us.

--
Steven Lembark                               2930 W. Palmer
Workhorse Computing                       Chicago, IL 60647
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Author: Steven Lembark
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