IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and BEA Systems are all hoping to win over the lucrative market for database software. Big Blue will announce later this month that it will ship by June the first product from Xperanto, an initiative aimed at helping companies fetch information from many data sources all at once, from sales records to documents stored in email servers.
Meanwhile, Microsoft and BEA Systems are approaching the same problem with similar technology, while database market leader Oracle favours a different approach. At stake is the global market for database software and services, which was worth roughly $9bn in 2001. Each company is hoping to establish its technology as a way to sell new database servers or add-on servers specifically designed for integration, said analysts.
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