“IBM DB2 is only popular on mainframes…which is only used by your father!” That was Oracle Chairman and CEO Larry Ellison’s response to a report that Big Blue’s database-management software is gaining market share over Oracle. A recent Gartner Dataquest study ranked IBM ahead of Oracle in the highly competitive DBMS market. The report, which Oracle has since disputed, found that the Redwood Shores, Calif.-based company had slipped to second place in the overall database market in 2001, with a market share of about 32 percent, versus IBM’s 34.6 percent.
Oracle: IBM DB2 is Behind the Times
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
DB2 is primarily used on big machines–IBM’s mainframe zSeries and midframe iSeries. With the iSeries, and the AS/400 and System/38 before it, DB2 has been a part of the machine itself, beneath the operating system.
You write your programs and SQL and it works. You don’t have to worry about bug after bug as you do with each new Oracle release. I’m not certain what Oracle’s motivation for quality of software is, but it isn’t very strong.
As far as market share goes, Oracle still has more of the market than DB2, but since IBM bought Informix, IBM has a bigger total market share with Informix and DB2.
Brilliant, I say
Suse is based in Germany, as is SAP. IBMs DB2 is the official DB of choice per SAP, and therefore, who would IBM turn to for Linux work? Suse! Guess What? Suse is the official distribution of SAP too! Amazing. I have to take my hat off to IBM for that.
Interesting. I’ve never been the database-inclined type myself. I’ve worked around Oracle developers, and done some DBA work with SQL Server, MySQL etc. I rather liked the ease of straight SQL code, but figured that I’d never have the time to learn all there was to know how to do “real” database work.
Now you’re saying that all that stuff in Oracle might be unnecessary complexity. I can believe that. I’ve seen the same kind of thing happen to NT, for example. I suppose that a lot of people could be buying Oracle for the same kinds of (all wrong) reasons too! Interesting…
50% of people buy oracle because “that’s what everyone else uses”
45% of people buy oracle because “that’s what the vendor supports/recommends” (for peoplesoft etc)
3% of people buy oracle because they think it is the best fit for their project – but are wrong.
2% of people buy oracle because they really do need a particular oracle feature.
Everyone else just uses faster/cheaper/simpler databases.
DB2 is as feature rich as Oracle, at least as robust and easier to manage and admin… and it’s a lot cheaper. Also the license model is better (“one server, one license”). If I had the budget for an expensive database, I’d go for DB2 anytime.
But then I can only afford MySQL, and since it’s doing the job fine…
as an AS400 user (we have heaps of as400s..;) all i can say is .. Yay DB2!! I havenot used oracle since version 6.