Microsoft has a similar timeline for the release of SQL Server 7.0, expecting the product to ship before the end of the year. IBM will announce a release date for the DB2 upgrade in the next few weeks, company representatives said, and the product will be available by the end of this month. IBM officials said ease of use was also a central theme of the upgrade, and the company is expanding the database's management tool Control Center as well as offering a Web-based version. Vendors believe that with the increased use of E-commerce and business intelligence, users will need a database that is bigger, more powerful, and has more extensions than ever before. In response, Oracle and Microsoft are positioning their products as more than just databases.
Some users do want to just buy a database.
We don't rely on the database for much except on the administration end. But for internal IS departments, an enhanced database with greater capabilities couldn't come at a better time. It is the cheapest way, even internally, to get stuff out to our users. The more we can put on the Web, the happier the company is. With native Java support, applications can be built for and deployed to the Web directly from the database.