HomeOracle Page 2 - IBM, SAP Aim their Sights at Oracle
SAP hopes to increase its database market share - Oracle
IBM recently announced that it will help its clients make the transformation from Oracle software to its own in more than one way. Not only does the tech giant vow to help with training efforts of its clients when it comes to becoming familiar with new software, but it will also finance them to make the shift a more attractive one.
Clients using Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, and other platforms for their database needs may soon have another alternative to consider. At the Sapphire conference in Orlando earlier this week, SAP announced that it will complete porting its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application to the Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) database by the end of this year. The move could allow SAP to make some noise in the database market, as it would offer cost advantages over some of its more widely known competitors.
As it stands, Sybase ASE's market share is overshadowed by the likes of Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft. One area where ASE does have a strong presence is with financial institutions. Once SAP finishes the porting process, it promises that its ERP customers will be equipped with a database equal to the one “that powers Wall Street.”
The porting is just a sign of things to come from SAP, as the company revealed that any future releases of ERP will already come certified out-of-the box with those of ASE. In order to make release and deployment planning easier for clients, SAP also said that it will synchronize ASE's life cycle with SAP maintenance policies. Joining business software of ASE and SAP means that customers will be offered a more consolidated avenue via a single company for dealing with items such as operations efficiency, licensing, and more.
Although the news from SAP should open some eyes, actual details are still unknown. At the time of the announcement, no specifics were disclosed regarding the resources SAP would give customers to assist with the shift to Sybase. Pricing information was also unavailable, but should become available in the near future. Once SAP does announce its pricing, it could cause Oracle to tweak its own price tag to avoid losing existing or potential clients. The price-focused announcement is a bit of a departure from the norm for SAP, as the company usually centers its pitches on mobility, software as a service, and in-memory computing.
Besides transitional resources and pricing, another item that remains uncertain is how ASE will be able to function alongside SAP's younger HANA in-memory database. While HANA's main focus has been on analytic workloads, some believe it could be used in the realm of transactional systems too.
Other SAP/Oracle news involves Intel's Itanium chips. Oracle recently announced that it would cease developing software for the chips, giving SAP the opportunity to step in. Itanium chips are used by Hewlett-Packard's Integrity servers and also run the company's HP-UX platform. SAP recently revealed that it would honor a long-term commitment to the HP-UX OS not only for its business applications, but also ASE.
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