December 4, 2000

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Database Grudge Match

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More on databases:

sidebar: Survey Methodology: How Vendors Were Ranked sidebar: Database Administrators: A Precious Commodity Portable Databases (11/27/00) TechWeb: Does Oracle Really Do It All? (11/28/00)

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IBM might have been expected to score well in the areas of reliability and scalability, given DB2's popularity on IBM mainframes. After all, those big machines are generally more reliable and scalable than Unix or PC servers. Gartner Group analyst Betsy Burton attributes IBM's high scores for database scalability and availability in part to the mainframe factor.

Where does that leave the rest of the pack? When it comes to reliability and availability, survey respondents gave Informix a score of 7.4, Sybase 6.9, and Microsoft 6.7. For scalability, Informix earned a 7.3, while Microsoft and Sybase deadlocked at 6.2.

"It doesn't surprise me that there's so much interest in DB2," Gartner's Burton says. Her reasoning: Application vendors such as SAP and PeopleSoft Inc. have been heavily promoting their software on DB2 because Oracle competes with them in the applications market. What's more, she says, users of Informix and Sybase databases are eyeing DB2 as an alternative, as are some Oracle customers who are unhappy with the vendor's pricing strategy.

IBM faces its own challenges. Professional-services companies such as the large consulting firms don't push DB2 because they see IBM's professional-services organization as a competitor, Burton says. IBM's strength at the high end is also its weakness. Most DB2 sales are still on mainframes or IBM's own AIX operating system, while sales on Windows NT and other flavors of Unix remain "lackluster," albeit growing, the analyst says.

Oracle ranked first in one category of our survey--features and innovation. One example: Oracle9i, due early next year, will include new cache fusion technology that promises a major improvement in scalability, availability, and performance in clustered environments. Those kinds of advances, combined with Oracle's already high showing in the survey's reliability and scalability categories, help explain why the company is the overall database market leader. Oracle databases are popular in companies that run a mix of operating systems and computer hardware platforms and where database performance is a high priority.

"The Oracle database is rock-solid. In the three-to-four years we've using it, we haven't lost a piece of data. You can't beat that," says Jim Prevo, CIO of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. in Waterbury, Vt. He also gives high praise to Oracle's customer support.

IBM and Oracle are keeping a wary eye on Microsoft. Before the introduction of SQL Server 7.0 in late 1998, use of Microsoft's database was mainly limited to small and midsize companies or departments and workgroups within larger companies. Microsoft maintains that SQL Server 7.0 has found its way into high-end computing environments, and it expects SQL Server 2000, which began shipping this fall, to make even more headway. But the relatively low satisfaction scores Microsoft earned for reliability, availability, and scalability show that the company still has a way to go.

"Microsoft never puts out mature software," says GE Capital's Vossbrinck. "You have to check their Web site periodically to make sure you have the latest patch and your software is up to date." GE Capital uses a combination of Microsoft, Oracle, and Sybase databases to manage its business of moving $14 billion in funds every day.

Microsoft officials remain optimistic--and they have a ready answer for SQL Server's third-place showing. Steve Murchie, group product manager, says SQL Server's scores may be based more on perceptions about its past limitations than on the realities of its current capabilities.

Microsoft's database offering does have its backers. Microsoft placed first in two categories: pricing and value and programming expertise. "A lot of people like the features of SQL Server because it integrates so well with Microsoft BackOffice and Visual Basic," says William Clark, a principal analyst at Tri-Cor Industries Inc. in O'Fallon, Ill. The company uses Microsoft, Oracle, and Sybase databases for its work in developing software for the U.S. government and military.

Customer service remains an Achilles' heel for Microsoft; it placed last in the category with a satisfaction rating of only 6.0. Microsoft has traditionally relied on channel partners and other companies to provide service to its customers. That model may have to change as Microsoft markets more enterprise-grade software, Murchie says. IBM ranked highest in customer service with a 7.7 satisfaction rating, followed by Informix, Oracle, and Sybase.

"One of the things we've acknowledged is that as we get into the enterprise, [customers] look for a closer relationship with a support and service organization," Murchie says. "We need to address more of those enterprise buyer issues." For the moment, that means building even closer ties with hardware partners and focusing on ventures such as Avanade Inc., an IT services firm jointly created by Microsoft and Andersen Consulting earlier this year to facilitate the rollout of Windows 2000 into enterprise accounts.

All the database vendors could stand some improvements when it comes to customer service. With a rating of 8.6, customer service and vendor responsiveness ranked second only to database reliability and availability among the criteria IT managers use when choosing a database vendor. However, survey respondents gave vendors an overall satisfaction rating of 6.7 for service and responsiveness. "It seems like they don't support anything older than 90 days," GE Capital's Vossbrinck says in frustration.

Despite their emphasis on customer service and vendor responsiveness, IT managers don't rely heavily on service-level agreements for enforcement. In the survey, service-level agreements ranked fairly low among database-selection criteria. In this category, too, IBM came out first, followed by Oracle, Informix, Microsoft, and Sybase.

IT managers are demanding better performance and scalability from their databases and better service from their vendors, and they're willing to pay more to get those things. Survey respondents gave pricing and value a 7.9 rating among the criteria for selecting a database vendor. That put it ahead of factors such as industry expertise and vendor reputation but behind reliability and availability, customer service and responsiveness, features and innovation, and scalability.

Survey respondents gave Microsoft the highest score for pricing and value--not surprising, given Microsoft's business model of keeping prices low and selling in volume. But customers say the savings go beyond SQL Server's initial purchase price.

How The Vendors Stack Up
How customers ranked their relational database vendors in the following categories
Customer Referrals 1. IBM 2. Oracle 3. Informix 4. Microsoft 5. Sybase	Service And Responsiveness 1. IBM 2. Informix 3. Oracle 4. Sybase 5. Microsoft	Features And Innovation 1. Oracle 2. IBM 3. Informix 4. Microsoft 5. Sybase	Industry Expertise 1. IBM 2. Oracle 3. Microsoft 4. Informix 5. Sybase	Pricing And Value 1. Microsoft 2.Informix 3. IBM 3. Sybase 5. Oracle
Programming Expertise 1. Microsoft 2. IBM 2. Oracle 4. Informix 4. Sybase	Reliability And Availability 1. IBM 2. Oracle 3. Informix 4. Sybase 5. Microsoft	Scalable And VLDBs 1. IBM 2. Oracle 3. Informix 4. Microsoft 4. Sybase	Service-Level Agreements 1. IBM 2. Oracle 3. Informix 4. Microsoft 5. Sybase	Strategic Advice 1. IBM 2. Oracle 3. Microsoft 4. Informix 5. Sybase
Multiple rankings indicate a tie. Customers reviewed each vendor on a variety of attributes, including a 1 to 10 scale where 1 is not at all satisfied and 10 is extremely satisfied. Averages were used to define the rankings. data: InformationWeek Research Analyzing the Vendors 2000-Relational Database Survey of 303 IT Professionals

"I don't have to fund this huge, Oracle-certified staff to maintain an Oracle database," says Jack Voth, IS manager at Gulf Coast National Bank, a subsidiary of First Bancorp Inc., in Naples, Fla. The local bank has seven servers running SQL Server 7.0 to handle a range of document generation and imaging applications for the bank's commercial lending and mortgage operations. "I'm able to manage all those myself," Voth says. Of course, the fact that the bank also uses Microsoft BackOffice applications to run most of its operations was another reason for going with SQL Server. "We're the epitome of a Microsoft shop," Voth says.

Illustration by Gerard Dubois
Photo of Vossbrinck by Tracey Knoll

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