Waldorf, Germany-based SAP had not responded to requests for comment by press time, but an increased relationship with Oracle rivals would certainly make sense given the increased competition it faces from Redwood City, California-based Oracle.
It is estimated that up to two-thirds of SAP’s customers used the company’s enterprise software alongside Oracle’s database management systems. Previously this was not much of an issue given SAP’s lead over Oracle in the enterprise software market.
Oracle’s $10.3bn acquisition of PeopleSoft has closed the gap, however, and it appears SAP is now considering its database options. The company has many to choose from. It already has database support relationships with Microsoft and IBM, and reports indicate IBM is planning to launch a new version of its DB2 Universal Database later this quarter that is optimized for SAP applications.
SAP is also known to be working with Computer Associates to optimize CA’s recently open sourced Ingres database for SAP software. The company also has an ongoing relationship with open source database specialist MySQL AB, which acquired SAP’s open source database SAP DB in 2003, renaming it MaxDB.
