Re: database market share 2003

From: Daniel Morgan <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu>
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 21:56:33 -0700
Message-ID: <1086929808.312585@yasure>

Mark A wrote:

> "Daniel Morgan" <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu> wrote in message
> news:1086927557.861975_at_yasure...
>

>>And please let me asset to you that code I have written in my 35+ years,
>>many of which were IBM DB2 on mainframes ... that code could not be
>>moved, without modification, to a Windows or other platform. Even
>>basic things like how many characters long is the name of a table
>>would/could change.
>>
>>Is that no longer true?
>>
>>I find it hard to believe that anyone would assert that DB2 on OS/390
>>where it is shared-everything can be put onto a different operating
>>system where the DB2 architecture is shared-nothing and think it will
>>run as is. Please tell me if I am incorrect.
>>
>>You see the one nice thing about some of DB2's competitors is that
>>the code written is 100% compatible across operating systems ... not
>>even requiring a recompilation.
>>
>>-- 
>>Daniel Morgan

>
>
> No, that is not true. The OS/390 (MVS or whatever) COBOL compiler you might
> have used with Oracle on OS/390 is not compatible with any Windows, Linux,
> or UNIX COBOL compiler (assuming you even wanted to use COBOL on those
> platforms).
>
> Initially, there were many incompatibilities between DB2 on OS/2 (the
> predecessor of DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows). Those differences at the
> DML level are very few now (especially with the release of DB2 version 8 for
> z/OS).
>
> The reason that Oracle uses the same code base for all platforms has nothing
> to do with portability, it has to do getting a product out the door with a
> few changes as possible to work on a particular OS. The fact that Oracle on
> does not work very well on OS/390 is a testament to the fact that such a
> strategy is mostly a marketing one, and did not produce excellent products
> that customers want (at least not on OS/390).
>
> The portability issue is mostly a red herring. Microsoft SQL Server is
> selling quite well even though it only runs on Windows. On the platforms
> that DB2 competes vigorously with Oracle (Linux, UNIX, and Windows) the DB2
> code base is identical on all those platforms.

Thanks for the clarification.

The reason Oracle doesn't concentrate on OS/390, if that is the case, might also relate to the difficulty of selling into a marketshare very carefully managed by IBM. I know that was the case when I last worked on that class of machine.

-- 
Daniel Morgan
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)

Received on Thu Jun 10 2004 - 23:56:33 CDT