Free DB2 Part Of IBM's Information Management Push

IBM joined Microsoft and Oracle last week in offering a freebie database for ISVs and developers with the announcement of DB2 Express-C for Linux and Windows boxes.

In doing so, the company reinforced its view that database management is a tiny, albeit important, part of a bigger and faster-growing information management field.

Ambuj Goyal, general manager of IBM’s information management division, Cambridge, Mass., was emphatic on that point with CRN last week. While Microsoft, Oracle and IBM all claim pieces of the database market-share lead, that’s almost beside the point, Goyal said.

In his view, IBM—with its DB2 database, content management, information integration and other wares—can better serve a company’s overall needs than its rivals.

“Database is a fairly mature market, growing about 5 [percent] to 6 percent a year, and that number keeps getting shifted downward,” Goyal said. “In that space, we compete with Microsoft and Oracle, typically.

“Information management is way beyond just relational databases. If you look at just content management, [also] in the information management space, that’s growing 8 [percent] or 9 percent,” he said.

In that segment, IBM contends with Documentum, FileNet and others. In other areas, IBM’s competitors include Informatica and Teradata, to name a few.

Goyal’s point is that IBM has viable entries in a far larger realm than just database management systems. “We don’t have to escape into ERP to grow our revenue,” he said. That remark could be aimed at Oracle, which spent billions to buy PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Siebel Systems and their applications, and/or Microsoft with its buyout of Great Plains and Navision.

Some partners said IBM’s free database initiative may be tactical, but it’s also important.

“I think the biggest benefit will be to attract ISVs who might otherwise gravitate to MySQL,” said David Via, vice president of the Wolcott Group, a Fairlawn, Ohio, solution provider specializing in collaboration. On the other hand, since Oracle and Microsoft already have free starter versions, this strategy has become “table stakes” for players in that market, Via added.

John Dubois, managing partner and CTO of Ascendant Technology, Austin, Texas, said the latest Express entry will strengthen other members of the lineup. “WebSphere Portal Express has the Cloudscape [Java] database, but other Express offerings have no database. You’re stuck with the free version of SQL Server or Oracle,” he said.

Dubois also said IBM’s freebie shows “a clear commitment to small businesses.”

For full Goyal interview see CRN.

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