Oracle Bests IBM DB2 in New Study on Database Total Cost of Ownership Oracle8i Found to Support 60% More Users at 28% Lower Overall Cost of IBM REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- (http://www.oracle.com/tellmemore/?304529) Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL), the largest provider of software for e-business, today announced the findings of an independent study by INPUT that directly compares Oracle8i(TM) and IBM DB2 Universal Database on the important e-business metrics of scalability, availability, ease of implementation and compatibility with packaged applications. According to the report "Buyer's Guide to Database Server based on Cost of Ownership and Effectiveness," Oracle8i Enterprise Edition is 28% lower in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) per named user per year than IBM DB2 Enterprise Edition. Not only is Oracle more cost-effective, but INPUT also found that Oracle8i on average supports 60% more users than IBM DB2. The report is based on real-world customer data from 116 survey participants. "Much of the debate over Total Cost of Ownership originated to establish differentiation between mainframe, client/server and Internet computing architectures," said Rick Smith, COO of INPUT, a web-based IT market research and marketing services firm. "INPUT undertook this particular study at a time when IT departments began shifting away from traditional measurements of TCO in favor of understanding TCO in support of B2B and B2C Internet applications. This report offers the first TCO findings delivered in the context of the 24x7x365 Internet." Other key findings of INPUT's TCO study include: -- TCO per transaction per minute (excluding cost of downtime) is 19% lower for Oracle8i than for IBM DB2 -- The proportion of databases requiring hardware upgrades is lower for applications on Oracle8i than for IBM DB2. -- Oracle8i on average supports 16% higher transaction throughput than IBM DB2. -- Oracle8i offers a higher level of availability than IBM DB2. -- Oracle8i is perceived to score higher than IBM DB2 in terms of ease of implementation and compatibility with packaged applications. INPUT recognizes that it is no longer enough to research "IT for IT's sake," and undertakes research that considers information technology in the context of the business process of which it is an integral part. This particular study is the culmination of customer research in the following associated database costs related to operating an e-business: software, hardware, implementation, training, upgrade, maintenance, operations, support and downtime. All databases included in the study were required to support a minimum of 50 named users, with the number of users per database averaging 780. "This study confirms there is only one choice for a database to power an e-business -- Oracle," said Chuck Rozwat, Oracle executive vice president of Server Technologies. "With Oracle8i, Oracle continues to enhance its core functionality of scalability, reliability, availability and performance. As the results of INPUT's important TCO study show, Oracle continues to not only surpass its database competition in terms of Oracle8i's rich functionality, but also in terms of its ability to directly support important e-business metrics. Oracle8i offers the best value in the industry." Oracle8i contains all of the functionality needed to develop and deploy Internet applications in a highly scalable, manageable, reliable and secure way. Unlike competitive offerings that spread functionality over numerous servers or have unique databases for different operating systems, Oracle8i is a single database that can be ported seamlessly to all major operating and hardware system platforms, and offers a single information management repository for relational data, multimedia and over 150 different file types. Oracle8i is the most rapidly adopted database software in Oracle's history. To date, over 25,000 customers have licensed Oracle8i, and over 1 million copies have been downloaded by developers from Oracle Technology Network. Oracle8i was recently awarded the "Best Database for Java," by the editors of Java Developer's Journal. Additionally, Oracle was recently found to be the worldwide database market leader by both IDC and Gartner Group's Dataquest for 1999. About Oracle Oracle Corporation provides the software that powers the Internet. For more information about Oracle, please call 650-506-7000. Trademarks Oracle is a registered trademark and Oracle8i is a trademark or registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. SOURCE Oracle Corporation Web Site: http://www.oracle.com/tellmemore/?304529 Company News On Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/100462.html or fax, 800-758-5804, ext. 100462