A second point is that, despite IBM's habit of selling mainly to its existing customers, with the Oracle-to-DB2 initiative, IBM also attacks what it calls "white space" prospects. These are companies that do not currently use any IBM hardware or software; a point that, inevitably, makes the sales process more challenging.
One obvious and immediate target is Sun Microsystems customers dissatisfied with Oracle's embrace, especially larger pre-dot-com companies that feel as if they can no longer count on Sun's new parent to deliver cost-effective hardware and storage scaling to match the needs of their growing data stores.
To give these potential clients an additional level of comfort, IBM has very strong sales business partners and has put in place attractive incentive plans to encourage them to push the IBM migration strategy. The recent dramatic cooling in the relationship between Oracle and HP has provided IBM another large target; HP customers concerned about whether or how the dispute will affect their IT investments. For these companies, hedging their bets by migrating to IBM DB2 may be a reasonable option.
Well, should Larry Ellison (and Mark Hurd) turn their attention more to IBM and less to its erstwhile partner HP? That depends upon how significant the IBM DB2 attack is against the Oracle flagship database, which is still the most vital engine of its overall revenues. To decide, they must first determine whether the IBM attack is an ankle-biter, a leg chewer, or a go-for-the-throat threat.
An ankle-biter threat only nips at the heels of Oracle. Although it would lose some accounts, as a whole, its database hegemony would not be seriously threatened. A leg chewer would take away enough accounts to make a pained Oracle sit up and take notice (as their profits would be significantly impacted). The likely response to this type of threat would probably be the old industry favorite of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) as well as the promise that the next release would solve all the problems that IBM trumpets.
