Re: database market share 2003

> growing??? there was a news report a couple of days ago that IBM's
> MF business was about $3 (or $4) billion annually. and that 10 years
> ago it was $12 billion. i didn't attempt to verify this, of course.
> anyone is welcome to do so. but, on the face of it, DB2/MF is NOT the
> future.
>
> robert

If one is running an application on a mainframe (even with web clients) then DB2 for mainframe is the future. Why can't a company make good database servers for multiple platforms? Is that impossible?

I don't think software licenses for DB2 on mainframes has decreased to same extent as the hardware (for obvious reasons). In fact they probably have not decreased at all. Hardware costs have come down, and mainframes are now using enterprise storage devices instead of "mainframe" storage devices.

What do you mean by "the future"? Most of us are in the business of providing solutions to customers right now, and sometimes DB2 for mainframe is the best solution. Right now.

In the future, hardware platforms will tend to merge. Windows Servers, and UNIX servers are getting more powerful and more robust. Mainframes are getting much cheaper, physically smaller, and capable of running multiple OS's. IBM mainframes already run Linux instead of OS/390 if that is what you prefer. Received on Fri Jun 04 2004 - 16:16:12 CDT