Web features come last on DBMS shopping lists

Despite paying lip-service to widespread Internet use, few UK companies consider Web-enabled features important for DBMS products, according to a survey for the DBWorld 97 conference.

Web enablement comes bottom of the list, along with multimedia features and object-orientation, when corporate UK makes buying decisions about its DBMS systems.

Top of the must-haves for databases are reliability, data integrity and performance. Price is halfway down the list.

According to the DBWorld poll, to which more than 700 IT personnel responded, 60% of organisations use the Internet, 21% already have an intranet and 33% are considering an intranet.

The market for specialist data warehousing products is still small (see graph above). A few organisations use Prism and ETI Extract, but more of them use the established EDA/SQL and SAS products. Prism has scored an early success, gaining equal footing in terms of buying intention as EDA/SQL and SAS.

Large organisations, specifically utilities, retail and banking companies, are the top users of data warehousing.

Data accessibility and performance are the top requirements. But companies of all sizes say they are considering buying data warehousing products in the future.

Almost 90% of the businesses polled already have a DBMS installed, so the market for new systems is only around 2%. But the market for upgrading to object-oriented database features is potentially very large.

Use of pure object DBMS is confined to a small group, but if object-relational (ORDBMS) products are included, usage climbs to 20% of respondents.

Pure object DBMS will be confined to niche applications and the market superseded by ORDBMS, says the report. Small and large organisations are more likely than medium-sized ones to use object DBMS.

This year's DBWorld conference, which will be held in London next month, is entitled 'Building the Extended Enterprise' and emphasises the importance of emerging Web-based technologies to corporate IT strategy.