The cost of writing database
specific applications (Open or Closed Source) adversely affects
application developers/vendors and end user alike. This
article in Network Computing
(regarding Oracle and PeopleSoft's DB2's user base) provides great
insight intothe time-tested problem of writing or acquiring
databasedriven applications thatare database
specific.
DB2 users of PeopleSoft and
IBM (the DB2 developer and vendor) suspect that Oracle will
obviously try to use its ownership of PeopleSoft to covertly
coerceDB2 usersinto becoming Oracle DBMS users. This
strategy would take the form ofnew features and fixes
discriminationas somewhatechoed in these excerpts:
"..In
the crescendo surrounding the Oracle-PeopleSoft merger, one
question has been repeatedly drowned out: What happens to users of
PeopleSoft's DB2 database? Oracle chief Larry Ellison has
repeatedly assured DB2 users--and IBM--that Oracle will continue to
support DB2 and PeopleSoft's interfaces to IBM's WebSphere
platform. But IBM isn't taking any chances, announcing an
initiative to alter DB2 to work with products from Oracle rival
SAP."
"..IBM
has good reason to be concerned. Oracle vies with SAP as the
leading vendor for enterprise applications, but it's under pressure
to show concrete benefits from the merger by combining assets and
pumping up revenue. One obvious tactic will be to use the
PeopleSoft applications to steer enterprise customers toward the
Oracle database by optimizing performance and features toward the
Oracle back end."
If PeopleSoft's application
core was ODBC based, the vulnerability to this predictable
competitive tactic would at the very least be significantly
alleviated. DB2 end-users and IBM the product vendor would have a
much strongerbasis for countering Oracle by taking
themto task about their claimed inability to implement new
application functionality enhancements against DB2 etc. especially
as this wouldhave morphed intoa generic database issue
as opposed to a DB2 specific issue --by virtue of the
application and data access layer seperation provided by ODBC's architecture.