IBM plays XML card in effort to beat Oracle - Builder UK

IBM is putting some muscle behind its SOA philosophy this month.

The company just made an announcement about the new version of DB2, version 9.

It sports better integration with the IBM WebSphere server, which is based on the popular open source web server from Apache. It adds XML support.

And, it introduces close integration of Ruby on Rails.

That sounds reminiscent of the successful efforts by IBM, Oracle, and other companies to add Java integration into their servers, ushering in the golden age of application servers.
ZDNet UK Builder:

Formerly code-named Viper, the XML capabilities will greatly improve the speed of applications that use XML, he said. "There are 68 patents alone in Viper, and it involved 750 developers over five years," Picciano said. "This is something no one else has and will take years to get here."
DB2 9 will also have a storage mechanism, enabling corporations to reduce their hardware storage needs by about 40 percent, he said. The data server will be optimised to run with SAP's packaged applications and have close integration with Ruby on Rails, Picciano said. He predicted the release will lure in Oracle customers and defend IBM from open-source alternatives, which are increasingly viable for corporate customers.

Technorati tags: ibm, db2, sql, soa, rubyonrails, xml, database