SAP To Bless IBM DB2 Viper As Best Midmarket Database

The announcement is expected to come at SAP's annual Sapphire event in Orlando, Fla. Industry observers estimate that most of SAP's customers, or around 60 percent, still run Oracle databases, but those customers are clustered in older R/3 accounts. The database kingpin’s acquisition of SAP rivals PeopleSoft and Siebel Systems have cast a pall over its relationship with SAP for some time.

Further evidence of IBM's ties to SAP, the company announced SAP flavors for its Workplace and Notes collaboration offerings. Workplace offers browser-based access to SAP applications where as Notes access for SAP lets users tie together SAP data and processes with Notes tasks including workflow, timer reporting and contact management.

IBM is due to release DB2 Viper later this year. Last year, IBM unveiled a version of the current DB2 that’s optimized for SAP applications.

SAP’s expected public endorsement of Viper is symbolic of SAP and IBM's closer ties, observers said. Such mutual back-scratching falls under the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" view among vendors.

Earlier this year, IBM and SAP said they were teaming up on CRM as well. IBM already hosts on-demand CRM for Siebel.

Though the symbolism may be clear, it's far from certain whether it will change the dynamics of the playing field, where Microsoft SQL Server is strong in small accounts and company departments and subsidiaries. Last week, a SQL Server executive told CRN that 42 percent of new SAP deployments run on SQL Server.

Paula Milano, CEO of Ki Solutions, an Irvine, Calif.-based SAP partner, said most customers stick with what’s comfortable for them.

"I believe people stay with what they know. If they already have SQL Server, DB2 or Oracle databases in-house, they're using it and try to stay with it," Milano said. "If they're going to a different platform, that might change. If they don't care and we manage [the solution] for them, we'll go with the best performance. We obviously have a strong relationship with IBM and support that database. But in the low-end space, it's a Microsoft type of world."

Sapphire kicks off May 16, and event speakers will include SAP executves such as Henning Kagermann, Leo Apotheker and Shai Agassi.