“Traditional developers of proprietary software are mapping
a strategy to dominate the growing Linux database market, once the
sole domain of open-source vendors. But open-source database
developers are fighting back with improved capabilities and an
emphasis on support that they hope will bring their databases into
the corporate world.”
“Oracle Corp., IBM Corp., Sybase Inc. and Informix Inc. are
counting on their already-solid reputations in the proprietary
world to spur adoption of their Linux offerings. The tendency to
stay away from untried technologies will block the adoption of open
source databases by the Fortune 500 for years, said Ann Harrison,
president of IBPhoenix, Manchester, Mass., which supports
InterBase.”
“Open source databases can’t compete with the commercial
databases in all categories,” said Michael “Monty” Widenius,
co-founder and main author of MySQL, Hensingfors, Finland. “We do,
however, compete in many of the strategic categories and, as the
products expand, we will start to compete in the categories that
have traditionally been reserved for the commercial databases,” he
said. Solutions are in the works to address some of these areas.
NuSphere, for example, plans to unveil Gemini, which will add
online transaction capabilities to MySQL’s database.”