IBM Gets Aggressive With New DB2 Express Pricing

By month's end, company will offer the database for $3,899 per CPU for unlimited users, said Janet Perna, general manager of IBM's Data Management Solutions group, Somers, N.Y.

"One of the things we learned working with partners is they're building solutions they need to make available on the Internet where you can't easily count users," Perna noted. DB2 Express is licensed to run on up to two CPUs and supports Linux, Windows NT/2000/2003, Solaris, and HP-UX.

The company will continue to offer the database on the current model, which is $499 per server plus $99 per user. With maintenance and support, that price climbs to $624 per server plus $123 per user.

The database market in small and medium businesses has heated up of late. Oracle earlier this month launching a new, lower priced version of its flagship database. The new Oracle Standard Edition One, is $5,995 per processor plus $195 per named user and is limited for use on a single CPU.

Microsoft is bundling SQL Server into its new Small Business Server which is $1,499.

With DB2 Express, the company had nearly completed its plan to offer versions of its major software offerings for SMBs. WebSphere and WebSphere Portal Server launched last year. Content Manager Server Express is expected to debut soon.

Also on tap for later this year will be DB2 Everyplace Express. DB2 Everyplace is IBM's small-footprint database that competes with iAnywhere and is typically embedded in small devices. DB2 Everyplace "provides our server customers with pervasive access to data. We look at it as an extension to deliver information to them on another device," Perna told CRN in an interview on Friday.

The product relies on a synchronization server to tap into and synchronize a person's Palm or handheld devices with mainframe or server-based data.

While not commenting specifically on pricing or packaging, Perna said the Express version will support the same data sources the current product does, but "there will be some price differentiation as to the configurations it will support. As in DB2 Express, it will be licensable for two CPUs, but may be restricted by processing power for the synchronization server," she noted.

IBM is touting itself as the infrastructure provider of choice to ISVs and other partners because it does not do its own applications. That ,it says, gives it an advantage over Microsoft which many ISVs see as a threat.

Perna said the company's own research shows it has 300 partners who are working with DB2 Express, 43 percent of whom have worked with Microsoft SQL Server. Sixty-four percent want to work in Linux, which SQL Server does not support. Perna could not say if any of the 43 percent have completely stopped work on SQL Server, however.