Exercise 10.3: Application server platforms in e-commerce

Question 3.
Go to the website of IBM, Oracle, Microsoft and Sybase. Is there any mention of e-commerce associated with their database products? What suite or partnership do they list with related e-commerce offerings? How do they compare with open source products like MySQL?

IBM
The IBM site has many pages related to e-commerce. WebSphere Application Server is one of the applications that is mentioned. According to Leading analyst names IBM a leader in E-commerce (n.d.), Independent analyst, Gartner, Inc. recently evaluated the top vendors in e-commerce and determined that IBM is a leader in e-commerce. Gartner named IBM WebSphere Commerce as one of the leaders which is defined "technology providers that demonstrate the greatest degree of support for B2B and B2C Internet sales."

Oracle
According to Oracle’s Complete Sell-Side E-Commerce Solution (2008), Oracle’s e-commerce solution is the answer for organisations seeking to leverage the internet in order to extend their reach and improve their business. Oracle offers a comprehensive e-commerce solution that integrates completely with Oracle E-Business Suite.

Microsoft
Microsoft offers the .NET framework and ASP.NET 2.0. As per Microsoft Offer excellent e-commerce experiences (n.d.), the .NET framework and ASP.NET have proved themselves in the e-commerce space, with hundreds of thousands of companies using it to build e-commerce related sites.

Sybase
According to Sybase, if your business challenge is to facilitate and manage business transactions between customers and suppliers while significantly reducing application development cycles and improving time to market then Sybase Enterprise Application Server & Sybase PowerJ are the answer.

The products that are referred to in these sites are application servers and frameworks, not just a simple database back-end. It is a whole package that is being offered.

MySQL
According to MySQL for Small and Medium Business (n.d.), MySQL Enterprise can add value to business because it is cheaper, reliable, has good performance, is scalable and is easy to use and deploy. MySQL Enterprise is a proven business-critical database.

When choosing an e-commerce solution, there is a lot of research to be done and each business has to weigh up what is best for them. This depends on many issues, including price, support, developer experience, timeframe, current platforms and databases, b2b requirements etc.

References
Leading analyst names IBM a leader in E-commerce (n.d.). Retrieved on June 22, 2009, from http://www-01.ibm.com/software/genservers/gartnerreview.html
Microsoft Offer excellent e-commerce experiences (n.d.). Retrieved on June 22, 2009, from http://www.microsoft.com/uk/web/web2_ecommerce.aspx
MySQL for Small and Medium Business (n.d.). Retrieved on June 22, 2009, from http://www.mysql.com/industry/smb/
Oracle’s Complete Sell-Side E-Commerce Solution. Revised, April 2008. Retrieved on June 22, 2009, from http://www.oracle.com/applications/sales/oracle-sell-side-e-commerce-white-paper.pdf
Sybase Powers GDI’s Repeatable Business-to-Business e-Commerce Framework (n.d.). Retrieved on June 22, 2009, from http://www.sybase.com/detail?id=1008953