IBM and Oracle Trade Barbs over Databases

There is an interesting article titled Is 10g feeling the pinch? written by Philip Howard (Director of Research - Technology, Bloor Research) that has been published on IT Analysis. In this article Philip Howard talks about the recently quarterly results published by Oracle. Oracle said that the database and middleware business together has grown by about 17 %. However Larry Ellison subsequently commented that the middleware business alone has grown by more than 80 %. Philip Howard takes these two numbers and comes to the following conclusion:

"But, if middleware has been growing so fast what does that say about growth in the database portfolio? Well, it is difficult to be precise but one has to assume that database growth is certainly no more than in single figures."

"In addition, bear in mind that the value of the dollar has been going down. On a constant currency basis (as opposed to the dollars that Oracle reports in) it would not surprise me if growth in 10g sales per se has been stagnant at best."

Well done Mr. Howard. Your analysis sounds logical to me.

But this is only the first part of the story. IBM officials used Philip Howard's anaylsis to throw verbal haymakers at Oracle. Read more about it here:

IBM and Oracle Trade Barbs over Databases

Bernie Spang (Director of IBM Data Server Marketing) cited Philip Howard's commentary and said:

"The rapid adoption of DB2 9 would seem to call their claims into question and analysts are starting to question their numbers as well."

Hmm, it seems to me that Mr. Spang forgot to mention that a significant part of IBM's database growth has been driven by Informix Dynamic Server. IDS license revenue grew by over 30 % in 2006. This growth is significantly faster than the overall database market growth in 2006. My guess is that the IBM's results for the first quarter of 2007 confirm this trend.

So it would be advisable for IBM to name the cow that is giving the milk !!