The simple answer is no: each have their own strengths & weaknesses,
but these tend to be nuances and each are otherwise very ansi sql
compliant.
The complex answer is it depends: on exactly what you want to do with
this database. I've had to make quite a few purchasing
recommendations in the past, and to be honest, sql features has never
been a deciding factor (between major commercial products). Licensing
costs, vendor strategy, vendor/product viability, solution
managability, skills availability, third-party support, performance &
scalability - these were the factors that typically influenced the
decision the most.
DB2 & Oracle are very competitive in my opinion. Oracle has more
mindshare, third-party support, and features than DB2 does. DB2 is
slightly more primitive, but also simpler and cheaper. DB2 also has
some very high-end scalability capabilities if you're in the data
warehousing world.
Coming from flat files, vsam, ims/db, or mysql these db2 & oracle
probably look about the same. But once you get much closer and start
working with them the differences loom large. ;-)
