IBM attacks Oracle's 9i claims

By ADAM GIFFORD

Software giant IBM has hit back at rival Oracle's claim, featured in a Business Herald report last week, that the new Oracle 9i database is cheaper and better than IBM DB2.

New Zealander Katrina Troughton, who is in charge of data management software for IBM Asia Pacific, calls Oracle's claim that 9i is the first practical platform for clustering databases "a little surprising."

"Clustering is a market we've been in since 1994. Customers like Merrill Lynch run hundreds of processors in clusters. Some of the biggest applications in the world, like SAP and Siebel, run on our triple E clustering system.

"Oracle is also saying it's the only one which supports Java and XML - we integrated Java into DB2 in 1996, so it's not a new technology for us."

As the inventor of the relational database, she says, IBM has some key technology strengths. It has also adopted a more aggressive approach to its database business, which may be why Oracle is turning the heat up.

"Four years ago when we took a close look at the data management marketplace, and we had to make a decision to play or not to play, we decided this wasa fundamental market for us, so we invested $US1 billion to do basics like more research and development, develop more products and significantly increase the sales and support team round the world."

That investment is paying. Market share has increased. The division has had 14 consecutive quarters of significant growth. In what IBM calls distributed systems and the rest of the industry calls open systems - databases running on Unix or Windows NT - sales grew 64 per cent last year and 36 per cent in the first quarter of this year.

Ms Troughton says that growth is driven in part by the strength of other IBM software like the WebSphere application server and application integration middleware and the MQ Series transaction management tools.

"Customers will often say they've bought WebSphere, when they've also bought DB2. It's so well integrated that they don't mention it."

While IBM promotes close integration with its own products, it also requires them to be compatible with competing middleware, giving each product access to a wider market.

Ms Troughton says Oracle's ownership of a large applications business is also threatening to application vendors, and many, like SAP and Siebel, encourage customers to put their applications on DB2.

"We are a middleware company, we do not compete with our partners."

She says Oracle's claim that 9i will be cheaper does not stand up to scrutiny.

Oracle's claim is based on the amount of additional software needed to create a working product. Oracle has said most of what a company needs is bundled in 9i.

"We've had business intelligence and core functions built into DB2 since last year," Ms Troughton says.

"What Oracle is saying now, our announcements were saying a year ago."

Ms Troughton is also responsible for integrating database company Informix into IBM in Asia Pacific.