Re: Company thought DB2 will be better than Oracle.

DBA wrote:

> You can't compare choosing IBM vs. choosing Informix. IBM is not likely to
> go out of business or be taken over by another company. The market share
> #'s are much closer than you indicate.

Not in the UK they're not.

However, I would like to point out that a lot of people *did* choose Informix over DB2, and they typically did this for several reasons:

1. They preferred the technology.
2. They preferred dealing with a company where they were considered important, rather than a company where customers and their wants get in the way of a process.
3. They bought into a vision that the database was a differentiating product and not a commodity.
4. Etc.

They did all this despite the fact that Informix's market share had eroded over the years.

The car analogy doesn't really work in this case, because there are other factors that influence a car purchase. I, for example, drive a very large BMW because I have a very small willy. Market share played no part in my decision, only the desire for a large, throbbing, thrusting ... car. Ahem. No database vendor markets to that sector of the market, AFAIK. (Although I haven't been playing close attention to Oracle's marketing lately, to be fair, they have probably got this base covered too.)

However, market share *is* important for ISVs and third party developers -- they are reluctant to develop on and support a platform that doesn't give them broad exposure to the market. Conversely, this affects your decision because it means that you have access to more applications and resources with a product that owns a bigger market share. (This argument falls down if you have a niche requirement that can only be satisfied by one product of course! :o)

Informix was hugely popular in the ISV space despite a less than massive market share, because they made it easy to do business with them, something I've found can only be said about IBM with your fingers crossed behind your back.

-- 
"C'est pas parce qu'on n'a rien à dire qu'il faut fermer sa gueule"
- Coluche