InformationWeek.com

Welcome Guest. | Log In| Register | Membership Benefits

August 23, 1999

IBM Offers Database For Free

Vendor hopes to spur sales of related products

Related links:

Baan And IBM Open App Development Facility

And from our sister publication:

Computer Reseller News IBM to make plunge into meta waters

BM last week released its DB2 Everywhere embedded database at a rock-bottom price: It's free.

By seeding the market with copies of DB2 Everywhere, IBM hopes to increase sales of other DB2 products, says Jeff Jones, program manager in data-management marketing at IBM. That includes other database systems within the DB2 line and IBM's Mobile Connect synchronization software, which lets devices running DB2 Everywhere exchange data with company systems.

"I think it's a fairly smart play. DB2 Everywhere is way behind as far as market share is concerned," says Meta Group analyst Jack Gold, noting that Oracle, Sybase, and Pervasive Software have sold embedded databases for years. "The idea is to make money off the back-end environment."

IBM's competitors weren't impressed. "It's a shell game," says Denise Lahey, VP of Oracle's mobile and embedded products division, noting that IBM still charges for its replication technology. Oracle's $195 price for Oracle Lite includes the database, iConnect replication software, and other tools. Sybase says its $399 SQL Anywhere Studio mobile/embedded database includes synchronization, query and reporting tools, and database-modeling software.

Vision Associates Inc., a developer of school data warehouse systems based on IBM's Visual Warehouse technology, has built Palm OS software incorporating DB2 Everywhere. Teachers use handheld devices to access the White Plains, N.Y., company's eScholar data warehouse system to retrieve information such as student grades, attendance records, and staff-certification data.

Vision Associates chose DB2 Everywhere during its beta program because the database worked well with large data sets and provided replication with central DB2 databases, CEO Shawn Bay says. The price was right, too. Says Bay, "Free is good."

Back to This Week's Issue