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Data Storage

SAP and MySQL Join Forces 230

Posted by michael from the join-me-and-together-we-can-rule-the-galaxy dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Heise Online is reporting that SAP and MySQL are going to cooperate (German article, you may want to use Google's translation). Short summary: MySQL and SAP are going to develop a new database server. 'The primary responsibility for the development and product management is with MySQL' says SAP spokesperson Karl-Heinz Hess. Until the new database is released, SAP will continue to develop its own free database system SAP DB, however it will now use the MySQL brand name." On a related note, IBM is introducing a low-end version of DB2.
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SAP and MySQL Join Forces More

SAP and MySQL Join Forces

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  • SAP? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @03:32PM (#6026953) Journal
    Isn't SAP the database formerly known as Abadas? I was under the impression that it was already vastly superior to MySQL. What exactly is MySQL contributing to this?

    • Re:SAP? (Score:5, Informative)

      by jdh-22 ( 636684 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @03:44PM (#6027056)
      SAP DB is pretty much equivalent to Oracle 7.3.4 which is to say that it's a solid product for many real-world applications, but lacks many of the features for truly high-end deployment, like clustering, complex replication, guaranteed messaging, etc. I'd take Sapdb over MySQL any day, and probably over Postgres too. Another nice thing about SAP DB is that it can emulate Oracle's system tables, so an Oracle DBA can administer a SAP DB system very easily.

      • Re:SAP? - resume (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mikewhittaker ( 313040 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @03:57PM (#6027154)
        Plus, if you've got anything with "SAP" on your CV/resume, you can get a higher-paid job.

        One of my colleagues has this theory that packages with (very) high entry costs - such as SAP - attract higher pay for experience than those with low/zero entry cost - such as most open source stuff and MySQL, which anyone and their dog can download for free & run on a $100 Linux box.

        • Kind of, but there's a lock-in there, too (Score:5, Insightful)

          by msouth ( 10321 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @04:06PM (#6027211) Homepage Journal
          It's true that you can make good money doing something like SAP, but you sort of have to sell your soul to it. I did it for about a year and a half, I was very good at it, etc, etc, but it was really boring. Right now I would like a job in anything, even something boring :). But since I have been out of the market for a while, I am unlikely to be able to get an SAP job. They want to know what the latest implementation job you were on was, stuff like that. They will ask for experience with a specific version, for example.

          So basically, if you want to work in it, you have to keep working in it. That is somewhat true in other fields, but I think stuff like SAP is exceptional that way--very closed. Hard to get into, and hard to get back into if you've been out.

          Mind you this is not because you can't just jump in and pick right back up--you can. but there's a whole mentality surrounding all the work that says "sorry, you can't come back in". So something along those lines.
          • Mind you this is not because you can't just jump in and pick right back up--you can. but there's a whole mentality surrounding all the work that says "sorry, you can't come back in". So something along those lines.

            As somebody who has been working in the SAP field for the last 5 years, all I can say is AMEN!

            It is a really tough field to break into because of this mindset problem. (See my ID.)

            I have recently moved into the CRM module and have found this work very stimulating. All this while making fai

        • Re:SAP? - resume (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Khalid ( 31037 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @04:29PM (#6027387) Homepage
          Indeed it's very difficult to become a SAP consultant. What you say is not a theory but a basic economic law. The more a market is difficult enter, the more you can keep your prices high. A market with low entry barriers becomes quickly a commodity market and prices are droved towards production costs. This is why MS and the like intentionally introduces artificial barriers into their Markets, one of the most famous example is Word data format.

        • Re:SAP? - resume (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Christopher B. Brown ( 1267 ) <cbbrowne@gmail.com> on Friday May 23, 2003 @07:49PM (#6028483) Homepage

          But these issues aren't relevant to this thread.

          The discussion is not about the "huge, complex application," R/3, it is about the database.

          And in the context of R/3, the database is essentially an embedded component, a tiny part of the overall system, and one that isn't used with immense sophistication. Most big R/3 installs use Oracle, but, for the most part, not in a terribly sophisticated way. There is little if any use of "advanced stuff" like foreign keys, triggers, or stored procedures; the DBMS is used as a "data store," and isn't expected to be terribly smart.

          There lies an interesting connection; that description historically describes MySQL fairly well, as a relatively unsophisticated data store. Make MySQL more robust and it might well make a nice "cheap" data store for R/3 . (Mind you, commercial licenses for MySQL cost hundreds of dollars more, per CPU, than, say, PostgreSQL...)

          But the "resume connection" certainly doesn't appear to be the point...


        • Plus, if you've got anything with "SAP" on your CV/resume, you can get a higher-paid job.
          I put "I'm a sap!" on my resume, but the guy looked at me like I was some kinda freakin' moron or something...
      • Hmm. So does this mean that SAPDB is to Postgres what Postgres is to MySQL - a more-capable but less popular and somewhat harder-to-set-up alternative?

        Apart from the Oracle system tables emulation what other features does SAPDB have over Postgres? Does it have its own PL/SQL-like language? Are there benchmarks?

        I must say that if the next version of MySQL has the industrial-strength-databaseness of SAPDB and the ease of use of MySQL, that's good news for everyone. I hope it will also have the multi-ver
        • Actually, the folks who are working on kernel tuning for database performance are switching FROM SAPdb to Postgresql because Postgresql is generally much faster, especially on multi-CPU machines.

    • Re:SAP? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by red_dragon ( 1761 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @03:48PM (#6027086) Homepage

      Isn't SAP the database formerly known as [Adabas]?

      Kind of; IIRC, it is a fork of Adabas.

      What exactly is MySQL contributing to this?

      My guess is that the new database will be much easier to set up and manage than SAPDB in its current form. Have you ever tried installing it from source? Saying that it is nearly impossible to get it to compile is an understatement. Setting up a MySQL database is absolutely trivial by comparison, which is (IMHO) the primary reason for its popularity. I'd love to use SAPDB, but I don't have time to deal with the frustration that its installation involves; any improvement in that area would be a welcome change.

      • Why Join Indeed. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Christopher B. Brown ( 1267 ) <cbbrowne@gmail.com> on Friday May 23, 2003 @07:39PM (#6028443) Homepage
        I think this hits the nail on the head. There are benefits to both sides in the deal:
        • MySQL contributes "name recognition" and popularity;
        • SAP-DB contributes a whole lot of functionality
        Correspondingly, they also may have some ability to cover one anothers' weaknesses:
        • Compiling SAP-DB is, as you say, nearly impossible.

          The code base is exceedingly obscure, and having the MySQL folk do some work on it may relieve that problem somewhat.

        • MySQL has some severe functionality deficiencies from the perspectives of anyone accustomed to DBMSes with mature transaction support, relational capabilities, and support for SQL features that go beyond minimal "entry level" stuff.

          SAP-DB has fairly mature answers for all those deficiencies.

        Of course, the code bases are presently entirely separate, so that ripping things down to build them back up is likely to be a multi-year project. Compare with Mozilla; when its source was "opened," they had to rip out all sorts of code from Rogue Wave, The Open Group, and others, and the results weren't useful until a LOT of work got done.

        In that interim, "mindshare competitors" such as PostgreSQL and Firebird ("the database, not the web browser" :-)) aren't likely to stand still, so it seems likely to me that a major result will be for them to get a lot more popular.

    • Re:SAP? (Score:4, Informative)

      by davidkw ( 190461 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @04:34PM (#6027413)
      SAP isn't a database. It is a software package, a collection of programs like PeopleSoft and Oracle Applications, which allows for the management HR, payroll, and industry specific applications... SAP software still runs best on Oracle databases, although they will never limit themselves to that statement. SAP is database independent and mySql is just another tool that they can use for marketing
      • SAP is the name of a company.

        It is NOT "a software package;" the "collection of programs" you are alluding to is not called "SAP," but rather R/3 . Recently, they have also been hawking a sort of "distribution" under the name MySAP, but that does not change that "SAP" is the name of the company.

        As to the "runs best on Oracle," I don't think one can readily distinguish whether there is actually any technical merit to that or whether it's a marketing ploy that SAP, Oracle, and consultants all agree

  • So does this mean... (Score:5, Funny)

    by zutroy ( 542820 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @03:35PM (#6026975) Homepage
    ...that MySQL will now simulcast in Spanish?

  • SAP and MySQL - The Difference is in the Name! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    SAP's lack of success can be contributed to their name. Who wants to be called a "SAP"? No one! Coversely, MySQL's success is also due to its name. It's MySQL, and not YourSQL. Everyone loves owning things and calling them theirs.

    • It's MySQL, and not YourSQL. Everyone loves owning things and calling them theirs

      Ohh.. so that's why Windows owns the desktop, because of the My Computer icon. All this time I thought it was because of robust coding and rock solid performance.
    • Now I know why MySQL is popular and PostgreSQL is not: it's all about the name! Try to pronounce PostgreSQL 20 times fast enough. Now same with MySQL. Which one is easier? That's exactly what your boss is thinking, the guy who is paying your salary.

      P.S. I wonder why SleepyCat is not the most popular database? Oh, I know - the boss afraids to leak any evidence of his child porns. Again, that's right - it's all about the name!

  • Actuality (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DreadSpoon ( 653424 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @03:36PM (#6026983) Journal
    A lot of code "mergers" tend to be announced, but nothing ever comes of it. The idea of a merged feature set sounds promising, but it is often difficult to merge the underlying code, which can be severely different even for features present in both code bases.

    Additionally, for open-source or largely community developed projects, it's easy for the leaders to announce a merger or roadplan, but a whole 'nother game when it comes to getting the volunteer coders to actually do it; switching codebases or doing the grunt work of merges isn't the kind of this most hackers find sexy or appealing.

    Point being, how much of this merger is something that's actually going to happen, how much is just a transfer of resources (versus merging of code), and so on?

    • Re:Actuality (Score:3, Insightful)

      by m0nkyman ( 7101 )
      From the MySQL website:
      "MySQL AB employs about 70 staff around the globe, and thousands more contribute to the success of MySQL by testing the software, integrating it into other software products, and writing about it."

      There are actually a fair whack of people at MySQL and SAP that are paid to do this. Like most of the major open source projects, a fair amount of the programming is done by people whose job it is. The myth of people doing it for free is just that. A myth. There are people who write code a
      • Not always true, I think KDE is a notable exception to this, and this is because the project has been very open from the beginning and has always welcomed new comers. There is a lot of FAQ, developer documentation to help people contribute. Conversely a lot of projects don't necessarily welcome outside contributions and MySql is one of them, I believe this is mainly for political reasons, MySQL AB wants probably to control all what goes into their code. Many projects didn't manage to get many contributors f
      • The myth of people doing it for free is just that. A myth.

        If a company is "doing it for free" and a company consists of people, then you have people doing it for free.

        Where's the myth?

    • Re:Actuality (Score:5, Funny)

      by brer_rabbit ( 195413 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @04:13PM (#6027278) Journal
      The UNION of these two databases can't JOIN? Maybe they didn't PREPARE? If they can't COMMIT what they brought to the TABLE then perhaps they should DROP dead.

    • I think both companies are well aware of the potential problems. The article talks about a timeframe of several years, so don't expect anything to be released within a few months.

  • Lets hope they dont call it (Score:5, Funny)

    by sfraggle ( 212671 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @03:36PM (#6026985) Homepage
    "SAP and MySQL announced that they would call the new database 'MySQL Firebird'.."

  • predicting the future.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by DailyGrind ( 456659 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @03:37PM (#6026997) Homepage
    Oracle sues SAP for $1Billion dollars claiming that SAP, which had previously licenced Oracle technology, is transferring Oracle's IP to mySQL.

    L.Ellison is heard saying: "There is no way that mySQL could become enterprise ready so quickly without help from SAP and through the use of Oracle's IP"

  • Benefits? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anime_Fan ( 636798 )
    I don't see how this would benefit SAP.

    Then again, at work I'm just a normal office worker, and don't get to see the inner periphelas of SAP - I'm just using it.

    This might be a good move, however, as SAP databases are (if I remember correctly) quite large. Two large corporations working together on one databse should benefit all of us - It sure beats competition database to database. In some time, we'll see how much impact such a cooperation will have on large-scale databases. Maybe complex operations in

  • Never heard of SAP... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I was kind of hoping MySQL would partner with IBM or some other high-visibility company that could deploy it at the enterprise level... you know, do for MySQL what has been done for Linux. It's a nice project, and seems to be working out pretty well here on Slashdot, but outside of that I don't think anybody is really familiar with it, which is unfortunate because I've been able to do a lot with it (OTOH, everybody seems to have heard of IBM DB, Oracle, or Microsoft SQLServ).

    So, nice to see somebody else
    • Why would IBM hitch its wagon to MySQL?

      IBM has DB2, which is vastly superior to MySQL.

      MySQL has improved, but it really is still pretty crappy. No subselects, no triggers, and it doesnt even use real standard SQL.

      Its fine for most web applications, which are just simple table lookups, but for more complicated data management systems, it cant remotely cut it.

      Oracle, SQL Server and DB2 have a lock on the enterprise DMBS market, and for good reason. They are the best pieces of software in the field right

    • Re:Never heard of SAP... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ctve ( 635102 )
      AFAIK It's a business package, although to describe it as "a business package" doesn't really do it justice. It's really something more akin to a business platform. It has a whole bunch of components for things that many businesses need, like purchasing, that sort of thing. It's also very programmable. My wife used to raise purchase orders on it. Is this a good thing? You betcha. MySQL is a good database, and this should help it grow - business perception will grow that this is a serious product.
      • It is a ERP system. Basically SAP software remodels every aspect of a business. Invoices and orders, logistics, inventory, human resources, everything can be stored in and managed by the ERP system. It is a huge piece of software, and also quite customizable so it fits every possible need. And, of course, there are specialized packages and consulting companies for virtually every industry.

    • Re:Never heard of SAP... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by afidel ( 530433 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @04:02PM (#6027186)
      SAP is one of the biggest businesses in the world. Basically they are business consultants that re-form businesses into more effecient forms from a workflow perspective. They do this around a central core of business process modules that are interlinked and which are well suited for integrating with customers current systems. The core of the system is their database so this is a HUGE deal. btw why would IBM hook up with MySQL, they are already the worlds biggest database vendor, unlike their OS which actually costs considerably more to maintain then they make off of it DB2 is a large profit center. DB2 is available for basically every platform that could conceivably run it, from VMS, to S/390, Solaris, Linux, Windows, etc.
      • The core of the system is their database so this is a HUGE deal.

        Actually, the core of the system usually is someone else's database, most businesses run SAP on Oracle or DB2.

        • Very good point. Actually the ad on the back of eWeek says 76% of enterprises run SAP on Oracle. I guess the point is that SAP has a vested interest in having an enterprise strength DB to bring the cost of SAP installations down.

    • Re:Never heard of SAP... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by jas79 ( 196511 )
      everybody seems to have heard of IBM DB, Oracle, or Microsoft SQLServ

      Shouldn't that be everybody who knows about databases?
      SAP is one of the tree big players on the ERP,CRM,HRM(or whatever TLA they use now). I suspect that more users know that they use SAP than that they know which database there ERP program uses.

  • SAP setzt auf MySQL (Score:5, Funny)

    by rwiedower ( 572254 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @03:40PM (#6027015) Homepage
    Does this mean MySQL will now only accept SQL commands in german? That might increase the querytimes significantly....
    • Hehe - English to German:
      * von der Tabelle IN DER somefield = "eine Last des Textes" UND des something_else > 4 VORWÄHLEN Sie;

      And back to English:
      * of the table IN somefield = "the load of the text" AND something_else > 4 PRESELECTING it;

      • You joke about this, but have you ever tried to debug an SAP R/3 program? The comments aren't so bad, some of 'em you can even translate, but it's the variable names that are a bitch. Theey're not even words, they're 12-letter abbreviations for words like Gegengewichtsgabelstapler [fork lift].

    • This blitzkrieg of SQL will end in an uber join.
  • Glad to see such a movement between the two companies. Older ./ story here
    http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/02/08/02 /1830245.shtml?tid=99 [slashdot.org]
  • ...use SAP's db at their corporate site? If Microsoft still does, I can't imagine that this would help the relationship.
    • No, Microsoft uses SAP's Enterprise Resource Planning software for things like financial accounting. Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, General Ledger, Sales Management, that sort of thing. (In SAP nomenclature, FI/CO, SD, possibly MM, ...)

      The main software that SAP sells is the set of applications that use a database (in Microsoft's case, a code fork of Sybase SQL Server). The DBMS is the smallest part of the code that is running...

  • welcome translation, liking this am I (Score:4, Funny)

    by Linux_ho ( 205887 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @03:45PM (#6027060) Homepage
    Goods are I, for on, delights to see this. Collaboration between information technology firms is always reception. Ears love I pieces of less important by approximately large firms as well as SAP releasing its intellectual property to the open source partnership.

  • Features? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by m0rph3us0 ( 549631 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @03:51PM (#6027113)
    I didnt know the loosing the ability to have foriegn keys and the ability to easily define functions and data types was an improvement. Why would anyone want to move from a database to a suped up version of Excel.

  • A theory on why they've done this... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by coupland ( 160334 ) * <<moc.liamtoh> <ta> <esahcd>> on Friday May 23, 2003 @03:55PM (#6027137) Journal
    This may be a low-cost gamble, considering SAP-DB is technically quite good but not very popular. MySQL still lacks a lot technically, but it sure has a big hacker following. SAP no doubt wants a piece of the enterprise DB pie and maybe they see Linux and Apache's success and think, "hell it costs peanuts to support the MySQL team and even though it's a long shot there's a slim chance we could start another revolution." Obviously this is pure conjecture but not an unreasonable explanation for what several people seem to be calling a strange move.
    • Yes SAP is really entreprise class RDBS, it has even an Oracle 7 emulation feature.

    • SAP no doubt wants a piece of the enterprise DB pie...

      They've been at pains to claim otherwise. According to material on the SAPDB web site, they *are not* interested in selling a relational database system. Rather, they want an enterprise-class, royalty-free database they can use as the basis for their core apps.

      SAPDB is trying to popularize its main applications (ERP, CRM) in smaller businesses than those in which they have traditionally been popular. Microsoft is just now entering this same spac

  • oh no! (Score:2, Funny)

    by bgs4 ( 599215 )
    SAP is turning the nose!

    we're all doomed.

  • Uh oh... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zulux ( 112259 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @04:08PM (#6027232) Homepage Journal
    I hope MySQL doesen't change too much...

    It a easy to use, psudo-database thats really fast.

    It's not a real database - but it's two strength (ease and speed) make it ideal for many projects.

    I love PostgreSQL for all sorts of real database reasons, but for some tasks MySQL is superior (like PHP websites).

    • There should be different classes of DBs for different purposes. You have Sleepy Cat's BerkelyDB which, from a RDBMS standpoint, is incredibly crippled, yet is uber-fast, requires little resources, and is iron-clad.

      You have MySQL which is like BerkeleyDB but with more sugar, with a network-centric view, and meta-data. But it does not skimp on speed for features or safety.

      I don't know if Microsoft Access is in the first class or second, I'd have to say first.

      Then you have the true RDBMS, MSSQL, Oracle, DB
      • Actually Access is in the craptacular catagory, it isn't fast, it isn't scalable, and it corrupts data more frequantly then any other program I've run into bar perhaps Outlook. If you need something smaller than SQL but a whole lot better than Access and you insist on an MS product then use the dektop data engine, at least it's based on solid code. As far as this partnership goes I think that the long term outlook for the MySQL folks is an easy to setup and administer RDBMS system with a variety of backends
    • for some tasks MySQL is superior (like PHP websites).

      and like Visual Basic. All three are superior for tasks , which assigned programmers who doesn't know (or even worse: is not capable to know) anything else.

      Typical dialog with PHP programmer: "Why do you use PHP?" - "It's fast to develop comparing to C!" - "Have you tried Zope or Cocoon or Axkit?" - "No, but why? PHP is already fast." - "Have you tried to develop and *debug* complex web applications?" - "No, PHP is good for single pages and that's wha

  • "SAP and MySQL Join Forces"

    They hired a CEO?

  • Reminds me of another system.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by pjdepasq ( 214609 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @04:20PM (#6027330)
    I don't usually post this kind of stuff, but thinking that mySAP would be a good name for a new server made me think of this old Internet email I've been saving:
    Manufacturing Information Access Software System (MIASS)

    This memo is to announce the development of a new plant-wide software system. We are currently building a data warehouse that will contain all plant manufacturing data. The program is referred to as the "Manufacturing Information Access Software System" (MIASS).

    Next Monday at 9:00 there will be a meeting in which I will show MIASS. We will continue to hold demonstrations throughout the month so that all employees will have an opportunity to get a good look at MIASS. As for the status of the implementation of the program, I have not addressed the networking aspects so currently only one person can be in MIASS at a time. This should change as MIASS expands.

    Several people are using the program already and have come to depend on it. Just this morning I walked into a subordinate's office and was not surprised to find that he had his nose buried in MIASS. I've noticed that some of the less technical personnel are somewhat afraid of MIASS. Just last week, when asked to enter some information into the program, I had a secretary say to me "I'm a little nervous, I've never put anything in MIASS before." I volunteered to help her through her first time and when we were through she admitted that it was relatively painless and she was actually looking forward to doing it again. She went so far as to say that after using SAP and Oracle, she was ready to kiss MIASS.

    I know there are concerns over the virus that was found in MIASS upon initial installation, but I am pleased to say the virus has been eliminated and we were able to save MIASS. In the future, however, protection will be required prior to entering MIASS.

    We planned this database to encompass all information associated with the business. So as you begin using the program, feel free to put anything you want into MIASS. As MIASS grows larger, we envision a time when it will be commonplace to walk by an office and see a manager hand a paper to an employee and say "Here, stick this in MIASS".

    This program has already demonstrated great benefit to the company during recent OSHA and EPA audits. After requesting certain historical data the agency representatives were amazed at how quickly we provided the information. When asked how the numbers could be retrieved so rapidly our Environmental Manager proudly stated "Simple, I just pulled them out of MIASS".

  • Google Translation (Score:4, Funny)

    by pruneau ( 208454 ) <pruneau@@@gmail...com> on Friday May 23, 2003 @04:50PM (#6027509) Journal
    ...or "Easy acces to the surreal for dummies"

    My two favorite:

    The chess move fits well into the Walldorfer concept to reduce the commercial meaning from data base servers to. SAP turns the nose, data bases actually the all world commodity became already longer and no cause, users enormous license costs abzuverlangen.
    Just in the mood of wasting bandwidth.

  • Ugly move, if true--current users had no warning (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Monkius ( 3888 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @05:07PM (#6027634) Homepage
    The SAP people have been utterly silent on the SAPDB list.

    I guess that tends to confirm this story, though for myself (and this is the view expressed by everyone who's commented on the SAPDB list) I can't see how this works technically. The two systems are virtually nothing alike, for all they both speak SQL.

    Worse, if true, this is far from the right way to treat the user community that has grown up around SAPDB. In that they found out about this in the Heise story--just like Slashdot.

    Not nice.

    For the past 2 years, it's seemed like there was a slow process of opening-up on the SAPDB list. The internal SAP developers finally this year provided external CVS access, and although they still seemed to value the fact that the code was difficult for non-SAP people to understand and work on--riddled with strange interfaces like COM migrated to Unix sans comments, and intentionally undocumented areas--I got the sense that things were improving.

    For all the above, SAPDB as a project felt (perhaps due to its status as the less-known, more featureful GPL'd dbms) like a community resource that _came from_ a company, rather than like the property of a company you can download for free, which is how I've always seen mysql.

    I still can't figure out what to feel about the vaporware merger of the systems, with development done by (yikes!) the Mysql folks, who a few years ago said we had no nead for transactions...

  • Platform Agnostic (Score:3, Interesting)

    by simon_aus ( 649753 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @05:36PM (#6027857)

    Most seem to be missing the point here. SAP is pretty committed to being platform agnostic and standards compliant. The main R/3 ERP runs on NT, AIX, HP-UX, OS390, Solaris, Linux etc and databases such as SQL server, DB2, Oracle, Informix and SAPDB

    SAP sells to the users management, not the IT department, and have you tried to dictate to them what platform to run? Especially a big corporate data centre with mainframes etc.

    If you ask SAP for a recommended platform for a component, they'll tell you to use one of the supported platforms and not a specific vendor. That's how they maintain the relationships with all vendors like MS, IBM and Oracle.

    SAP has been making a concerted effort to support linux (well Red Hat) for about five years and almost all components are supported, I only know of one in beta and not supported for productive use. If there is demand to run on linux, then they will meet that demand. The last thing they want is to be only MS or IBM, cutting off potential sales and the associated TCO issues affecting the product's sales viability.

    This becomes especially important as they approach market saturation in the Fortune 1000 space and look towards SME's.

    This could represent a big opportunity to the open source community as SAP spends serious $$$ on platform support and R&D (not games consoles and Bluetooth Keyboards). SAP support of an Open Source database WILL give the platform some serious datacentre cred.

  • This is why SAP and mySQL would want this. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by johndavid ( 675619 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @06:13PM (#6028057)
    A SAP mySQL merger/technology sharing agreement (what have you) makes a lot of sense for both groups. SAP's database is robust, and offers features that mySQL does not. msSQL is popular. msSQL could gain quite a bit of big-time features from SAP's DB (real tansactions, ACID compliance, etc.)SAP gains mind share and a real developers community (which equals growth and continuation of the platform.) IMHO it's a good fit. jd

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