Is database technology a commodity software or vital piece of enterprise infrastructure? Until recently the giants of the database industry would have insisted that the latter definition was correct. But now the winds of change are blowing – it may only be a breeze at the moment, but there is the prospect of a hurricane in the not too distant future. There has been a subtle change of stance by the database market leaders, not a Pauline conversion as yet, but definitely a shift to keep their options open.
It is understandable that this should be the case. Lessons have been learned from the fate of John Cullinane, CEO of hierarchical database firm Cullinet. Cullinane was the Larry Ellison of his time, the thought and market leader in the database space. But he refused to accept the coming of the relational database model and like King Canute, tried to turn back the tide. Instead he and his company drowned while Ellison and Oracle stepped up to take their place.
Seeing the red flags
So it is hardly surprising then that Oracle should be one of the firms that (a) will talk of the day when database technology becomes a commodity to be given away and (b) will embrace the idea of a new model that threatens to become a potent force: the open source database.
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There is a stirring in the relational tribe. IBM now offers a lower-end version of its DB2 product for free, following similar moves by Microsoft and Oracle. At the same time, companies such as Ingres and EnterpriseDB are ramping up high-end database offerings based on open source.
"The way Oracle licenses does not allow you to follow your software lifecycle. You are not able to reduce or add support as you need"
David Manifold, director of database services, Sony Online Entertainment
Of course, the world has been here before. Open source has famously been about to break into the mainstream on many occasions. Sun Microsystems’ OpenOffice ought to have crippled Microsoft Office’s installed base by now, if Scott McNealy’s overenthusiastic hyperbole is to be believed. But on the other hand, Linux is now regarded as a viable enterprise operating platform for large corporates, so clearly it is just a matter of the ‘right time, right place’ for open source technology.
Growing interest
So what are the prospects for open source databases? Well, for starters even if their revenue run rates are small compared to the likes of Oracle and IBM, they are currently racking up the highest growth rate in the database market, according to analyst firm Gartner. “The combined category of open source database management systems vendors, which includes MySQL and Ingres, showed the strongest growth, although it was one of the smallest revenue bases,” says Colleen Graham, a principal analyst at Gartner.
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