ZDNet: New Priorities Change the Database Race

“In particular, the desire to get the greatest bang for the buck
on Intel or AMD hardware is creating fierce competition among
database providers on the two most prominent Intel-compliant
operating systems: Windows and Linux. All makers run on Windows,
while IBM, Oracle, Sybase and other companies have versions of
their databases that run on Linux.

“In fact, many buyers see Linux as playing an increasingly large
role in their future system plans. A poll of Oracle database
customers taken in March by the International Oracle User Group
found that 43 percent of respondents plan to use Linux for ‘mission
critical’ applications in their data center within one year, while
54 percent plan to do so within two years.

“Given that Microsoft sells its database only for Windows, the
software giant could find itself losing out on some deals. That’s
been a recurring concern for Microsoft as Linux and open-source
software grows in popularity among businesses, especially on
servers…”

Complete
Story