27 April 2004 Computer giant IBM has unveiled a version of its widely used DB2 database package specially built for SAP applications.

Lining up against applications and database competitor, Oracle, the two companies say the specific version of DB2 makes SAP installation more seamless and enhances the performance and availability of the database.

It includes ‘SAP Tuner’ for automating many aspects of application configuration and dynamic storage allocation, as well as enhancements designed to boost the performance of SAP’s business intelligence software.

The two companies highlight that this is the first time the DB2 database has been customised for a specific application. But there is more to come.

“This new release of DB2 is just the beginning of a multi-year technology collaboration that will enable the pre-configured DB2-SAP platform to be a growth engine into the future,” said Janet Perna, general manager of IBM’s Information Management Software group.

The release is designed to help IBM steal database business from Oracle. Around 60% of SAP customers currently run the company’s applications on Oracle.