IBM Wednesday announced it is offering a
database that fully integrates e-business, business intelligence and content
management capabilities.
The DB2 Universal Database Version 7 is designed to provide customers
with advanced B2B capabilities at one-third of the cost of competitive
systems.
Product features include:
- Integrated in-memory text search for high-speed searches.
- Integrated data warehousing and on-line analytical processing (OLAP)
capabilities so that customers can build data warehouses, analyze data and
drive mission-critical
applications. - Newly revised Websphere application server software, which personalizes
and analyzes Web content, handles complex transactions and extends back-end
business data and applications to the Web.Partnerships for the product have already been established. For instance,
PeopleSoft will standardize its development platform on the new database,
while Siebel, SAP and others also have chosen the IBM Product as the
foundation for their business applications.“With this product, IBM
is building more and more
functionality into the base product offering,” said Frank Fillmore,
president, The Fillmore Group. “This offers customers a powerful e-business
solution
that combines business intelligence, data warehousing and Web-enabled
application development platforms into one product.The database is available on a variety of UNIX
platforms, including IBM AIX, Sun’s Solaris Operating Environment, HP-UX and
Linux, as well as Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 2000 and IBM OS/2.The product is priced at $359 for the Personal
Edition; $17,500 for the Enterprise Edition and $22,500 for the
Enterprise-Extended Edition, and is offered on a per processor pricing
basis.Through a special pricing program, the DB2 Universal Database Developer’s
Edition will be offered at $499, a 50 percent discount off the standard,
through December 13. Through this offering, IBM receives a
percentage of the revenue ASPs receive from their customers once the
solution is
implemented, based on a “per subscriber” or “per transaction” model.A free conversion tool is
now available for download can be obtained by clicking here.The launch of the product and the upgraded software is in synch with
reports that the information technology giant is beefing up its e-business
software and services.The company reported Wednesday that it plans to spend an additional $1
billion to boost sales for its family of application servers and software
that help companies build their Web businesses. More than $1 billion has
been spent by the company in this area over the last two years.IBM also said it intends to hire more than 1,000 sales
professionals and engineers to help push its set of Internet products to new
clients.
