IBM yesterday announced two new mobile versions of its flagship DB2 universal database, one aimed at laptop users and one for mobile workers using handheld PCs and communication devices. The news comes the same day as rival database vendor Oracle Corp outlined its future mobile database roadmap, including the latest version of its product for laptop PCs, Oracle8i Lite (see separate story). IBM said its DB2 Satellite edition is a stripped down, 8MB footprint version of the full-blown DB2 specifically designed for mobile workers using laptops running Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT. Janet Perna, general manager of IBM’s software solutions’ data management group said during a press conference that the Satellite edition gives businesses an easy, low-cost way of rolling out large numbers of mobile systems, with the added benefit of having centralized administration and replication facilities built in, thereby reducing complexity for users.
For the handheld PC market, Big Blue introduced DB2 Everywhere designed to run on devices with limited memory, such as Microsoft Windows CE and 3Com Palm Pilot products. Perna said the database, which has a footprint of just 50Kilobytes, will also be used, in time, to connect the new generation of smart handheld devices (smart phones and so on) to the internet and corporate intranets and extranets. The cut-down database uses IBM Mobile Connect synchronization software with DB2 to synchronize data on handheld devices with data on enterprise servers including DB2 applications, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange and Personal Information Management (PIM) applications. Both mobile versions of the database are still in beta and will be released later this year, Perna said.
The news follows the announcement of the latest version, release 6.1, of the full blown database, DB2 UDB, designed to run on all the standard platforms (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris and SCO UnixWare) plus the edition of Windows NT and OS/2 Warp. Although IBM has chosen to announce version 6.1 of its flagship database, rather than release another 5.X point product, Hershel Harris, director of database technology, admitted yesterday that the upgrade was not a huge change…it’s just a refinement of what we’ve been doing for years. Harris said the main thrust behind the launch was to deliver IBM customers the best platform for building, deploying and running e-business applications.
The e-business message is one most users are no doubt familiar with by now and Harris said version 6.1 of DB2 was all about IBM positioning its core database offering within that context. Our hardware, software and services divisions are all focused on helping customers to deliver e-business solutions and this is really us getting our database strategy in line with that. To achieve its goal, Harris said the database includes a number of enhancements to enable customers to build and run applications faster and more efficiently than before. As we reported yesterday, there are improvements to the actual system performance, including new benchmarks for ERP data, but IBM has also added a new graphical tool for building Java stored procedures, making it easier to build and deploy business intelligence, front office and ERP applications, Harris said.
