Re: No future for DB2

Hi rkusenet,
I saw the same article.........and there seems to have been a great deal of emotional response here.....

My opinion is the author is pretty much on track....

My understanding/opinion for what it is worth.

1. IMS and DB2 reign supreme on mainframe technology. Oracle is pretty much non-existant on MF and DB2 on MF earns IBM a tidy sum.
2. DB2 is the only real database on AS400 or eSeries as they now seem to be called. And the AS400 remains the most successful computer system ever launched. So DB2 on AS400 also earns IBM a tidy sum too.
3. DB2 on all versions unix....well....not that much presence as a percentage.....

However, this was no fault of the database (my opinion)......if anyone was at fault my opinion would be 'Janet Perna'. Janet has run the DB2 program for many years at IBM and as late as 1993 (when I was still at IBM doing Data Warehousing no less) the line was 'there is no future in RDBMS on unix'. So IBM did not even announce a product until late 1993 and when they did it was DB2PE running on SP2 nodes which was something of a poor combination. It came out in 1994 and was more than a little difficult to make work.

Sadly a research project for DB2/MVS to compete with Teradata at that time was dropped in favour of DB2PE on SP2s.

Janet has announced her retirement recently. Who knows if the next person will push DB2 on unix?

4. DB2 on windows? Well DB2 came out on OS/2 and it was pretty good. But we all know what happened to OS/2. It was some years before it came out on Windows and I don't believe it's share is so great.

So, the future of DB2?

Well, on AS400 and z/OS/MF it's as bright as it has ever been. It will be around forever. Indeed, no reasonable competitor exists for DB2 on MF/AS400 (that I am aware of.)

On unix? My opinion is IBM is not much interested in DB2 on unix.

The revenues available are relatively small. I can't see why they would bother pushing it that hard.

Oracle won that battle before IBM even got out of the blocks. There seems no doubt that Oracle will reign supreme on all things unix for some years to come.

And why would IBM bother spending a lot of time and effort displacing or competing for database licenses on unix?

IBM is going to do things more like team up with SAP to have DB2 be the underlying RDBMS when a new instance of SAP is sold...and I am sure SAP is running around it's Oracle RDBMS clients and trying to get them off Oracle RDBMS. And I am just as sure the Oracle reps will be in those same SAP shops touting the benefits of Oracle ERP rather than SAP on Oracle RDBMS... ;-)

And given the relationship between SAP/Oracle over the last 10 years I would imagine there are a few ISVs who will want to make sure they have a second database they can switch to in case Oracle move into the software direction they are currently in. The same as ISVs who develop on SQL server would like a second database in case MSFT move in their direction.

Today, IBM is the only one of the three that has promised not to get into the application development business. Indeed, IBM has sold off pretty much all it's application development business over the last few years.....so DB2 is an appealing database to have as the 'second' database on both unix and Windows for ISVs. And IBM can get those licenses for 'free'.

On windows? MSFT is going to take the majority share of RDBMS on Windows.....And again, I can't see IBM bothering to spend a lot of time and effort trying to get new licenses there.

The bottom line, my opinion.

IBM is still far and away the second largest software company in the world turning over around USD15B in software licenses/maintenance a year. DB2 on mainframe contributes its share and it's a cash cow. So it will be around for a long long time. DB2 on other platforms will remain around but I can't see IBM really having anything of a go at that market except thru ISVs and the like. (I could be wrong ;-) ).

IBM is concentrating on services....not hardware, not software.

>From pretty much zero 12 years ago, IBM Global Services now makes more
revenue than Microsoft (though are much lower margins). That is an unbelivable achievement. I worked in IBM in the services area in the early 90s and most of it was a complete 'basket case'.

I am sure IBM Global Services are just as happy to look after an Oracle database as a DB2 database as an abacus if they can earn their hourly fee for doing so... (LOL)!!

Best Regards

Peter Nolan
www.peternolan.com Received on Wed Aug 03 2005 - 10:59:00 CDT