How do/did you choose your DBMS

Hello,

since some month I've been engaged in comparison, evaluation and procurement of database management systems. Although there is currently being an enormous number of systems in use, there seem to be a lack of methodologies for the selection of DBMSs.

There are certainly some persons reading this newsgroup, who themselves were already envolved in the process of evaluating and selecting a DBMS. These are the ones, whome I'd like to ask the following ten questions: (of course I'm also interested in thoughts of other people)

1. Which literature on evaluation, comparison and selection of DBMSs do you recommend? (First of all I'm interested in selection *STRATEGIES* but product information is also of interest.)
2. Could you tell me persons who are already envolved in the topic stated above?
3. Please give a coarse overview of the environment, for which you chose a DBMS.
4. Which strategy did you use?
5. How many people/departments were engaged in the selection process?
6. How long did the decision process last in your company?
7. Did the decisions you made prove to be adequate?
8. What would you do in a different way, if you had to do the decision again?
9. What should be mentioned especially, when doing DBMS selections?
10. What were your economical/technical/strategic selection criteria?

Please don't hesitate to give apparently insignificant answers. They may also be useful for me. Please answer by e-mail or post to comp.databases. If there is interest I shall post a summary the aforementioned newsgroup.

ADVthanksANCE.

-- 
Informatics Research Center at the University of Karlsruhe
		Database Systems Division
Hartmut Schreiber 		e-mail: schreiber_at_fzi.de
Haid-und-Neu-Str. 10-14		phone: (+49) 721 9654 744 
W7500 Karlsruhe 1 (FRG)		fax:   (+49) 721 9654 709