Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Oracle Of Gloom - Forbes.com

Interesting reality check from Forbes

Call it the most important software release no one will notice. Oracle is set to launch a new version of its database software, dubbed 11g, Wednesday.

[...]

The problem, of course, is that after a surge in demand in the 1980s and another in the late 1990s, the market for big-time database software is saturated. More troubling still, a host of free and cheap alternatives, such as MySQL, have stalled demand for pricey database software among less demanding customers.

I disagree -- I think the industry is poised for a renaissance in data and content modeling/management, and that there will be a major resurgence in DBMS, especially for IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle, as the scope of DBMS expands to include full-fidelity XML content management (with XQuery, in particular).

It won't happen overnight, as DBMS upgrade cycles are in some respects even more protracted than OS upgrades, but the opportunity to have fewer moving parts (i.e., to consolidate content/document/web content management systems), to have content benefit from capabilities traditionally associated with DBMS (locking and isolation levels, robust transaction management...), and to use XQuery, a content/data manipulation language that has significant potential to optimize the best of both worlds, will be very compelling for most enterprises.

Oracle Of Gloom - Forbes.com

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