Re: IBM Debunks Oracle's MultiVersion Read Consistency ?

Noons <wizofoz2k_at_yahoo.com.au.nospam> wrote in message news:<Xns93653C8450E9Tokenthis_at_210.49.20.254>...
> Following up on Daniel Morgan, 21 Apr 2003:
>
> >
> > I'll take Oracle's write once run anywhere over DB2's write different code
> > for every operating system and platform model without any database security
> > any time.
> >
>
> Ouch! But true...

Well, more like a half-truth. There are 4 remaining code bases: (1) DB2 for VM/VSE, no longer being developed much - but Oracle server doesn't run on it anyway; (2) DB2 UDB for AS/400, which Oracle server doesn't run on anyway; (3) DB2 UDB for OS/390, which Oracle server *does* run on, apparently (although personally I've yet to come across anyone running Oracle on a mainframe); (4) DB2 UDB for Multiplatforms, which runs with a shared code base on Windows, Linux, multiple UNIX flavours and even Linux for OS/390.

It's the multiplatforms product that's been making the big inroads into Oracle market share. The problem for Oracle is that IBM has a genuinely comparable product, selling at a fraction of the price, using a common code base across all the platforms that Oracle runs on.  Database server sales are still a massive proportion of Oracle's turnover, so price matching would go down like a ton of bricks with Wall Street. Better it seems to keep the high prices and attempt to slow loss of market share by smearing the opposition.

Regards database security, yes all versions of DB2 use the operating system to authenticate users, and I see nothing really wrong with that - other than the fact that it then lets Oracle tout the obvious consequent absence of any "security awards" as though there is some sort of problem.

Jeremy Rickard Received on Tue May 06 2003 - 19:27:56 CDT