On Monday, April 29, 2002, at 01:22 AM, Francesco Bellomi wrote:
John,
thank you for your answer, you make a good point;
however my perception is that the XML native database arena is so young that it's difficult to tell which standard is proprietary and which not.
This is a pretty accurate assessment.
Xml:db, it seems to me, is not endorsed by any major standard institute, nor by any big IT company, and has Kimbro Staken, one of the main XIndice developers, in its management commitee. Tamino, on the other side is perceived as the de-facto standard, at least among my customers.
We have to be realistic here too. Tamino is definitely a better database then Xindice. If you need something "enterprise" level to store XML then Tamino is a much better way to go (If you can afford it).
Of course, over all I think the slowdown in tech spending has closed the window on stand alone enterprise native XML databases. Now that the relational vendors are moving from just mapping XML and adding direct native support the value of pure native XML databases is very questionable within the enterprise space. Even if their native support is still very weak, it's a lot easier to sell native XML Oracle to the average IT manager then it is a completely new product. Software AG in particular is losing money badly on Tamino and has seen very little license revenue growth in the past year (2.3M euros 2001 to 2.6M euros 2002). For a company the size of Software AG that doesn't bode well for the future. The opportunity was there, unfortunately it came at a time when virtually no one is interested in investing in unproven technologies.
I really wouldn't be surprised to see Tamino pulled from the market within the next year or two. It's a tiny part of their overall revenue, isn't showing any real growth and is only perceived as the de-facto standard because Software AG has spent far more marketing money then anyone else. I'
ve also seen some other signs that their long term commitment isn't what it once was.
I see pure native XML databases being of most value in smaller applications, especially when embedded directly within the applications. This is something that Xindice is much better at then Tamino and most other commercial databases. Especially since it's free. Xindice will also survive when most other native database are going to die or be absorbed into niche applications.
(I must stress that I prefer XIndice too, but I have to convince my customers!)
Francesco
At 07.44 29/04/2002, you wrote:Ciao Francesco,
For me, one of the biggest things in favour of Xindice is support for the xmldb interfaces and xupdate, which Tamino doesn't seem to have (and doesn't seem to have any intention of supporting, as far as I can see. Pushing proprietary standards instead?).
John
- Francesco Bellomi "Use truth to show illusion, and illusion to show truth."
Kimbro Staken Java and XML Software, Consulting and Writing http://www.xmldatabases.org/ Apache Xindice native XML database http://xml.apache.org/xindice XML:DB Initiative http://www.xmldb.org
