IBM DB TOOLS SALES GROWTH REFLECTS DB ADMIN SKILLS SHORTAGE.

IBM has announced that its database tools business nearly tripled since entering the market segment just six months ago. The growth is a direct result of the company's continuing database market momentum and the growing role of automation driven by the industry's shortage of database administration skills.

According to a recent SEC 10-Q filing from BMC Software, IBM's entry into the database tools market is putting increased pricing pressure on its chief tools competitor. In the report (Date: February 14, 2001, BMC SOFTWARE INC - Quarterly Report, SEC form 10-Q), BMC states that "IBM continues to focus on reducing the overall software costs associated with the OS/390 mainframe platform. IBM continues, directly and through third parties, to aggressively enhance its utilities for IMS and DB2 to provide lower cost alternatives to the products provided by us and other independent software vendors. IBM has significantly increased its level of activity in the IMS and DB2 high-speed utility markets over the last two years and recently launched a significant research and development commitment to compete in these markets."

IBM's database toolset is priced, in some cases, as much as 50 percent less than competitive offerings.

"Up until six months ago, DB2 users had to choose from a small list of high-priced tools vendors -- such as BMC and CA," said Janet Perna, IBM general manager of data management solutions. "The explosive growth we've seen in this segment clearly points to the industry's appetite for more cost-effective alternatives."

Since September 2000, IBM delivered 37 database tools to the market, supporting the latest releases of IMS and DB2. At the company's technical conference here, IBM announced several new or enhanced database tools and utilities aimed at improving customer productivity while continuing to reduce customers' total cost of database ownership.

New data management tools announced for DB2 include DB2 Archive Log Compression Tool, DB2 Automation Tool, DB2 Change Accumulation Tool, DB2 Object Comparison Tool, and DB2 Table Editor. DB2 utility functions are now offered as DB2 Diagnostic and Recovery Utilities, DB2 Operational Utilities, and DB2 Utilities Suite. New data management tools for IMS include IMS Command Control Facility, IMS High Performance Sysgen Tools, IMS MFS Reversal Utilities, IMS Database Control Suite, IMS Fast Path Online Tools, and IMS Online Recovery Service.

Enhanced data management tools for DB2 and IMS include DB2 Administration Tool, DB2 Bind Manager, DB2 Log Analysis Tool, DB2 SQL Performance Analyzer, IMS Database Repair Facility, IMS Fast Path Online Tools, IMS High Performance Pointer Checker and IMS Image Copy Extensions.

More than 40 million people from more than 300,000 companies worldwide rely on IBM data management technology.

For additional information on IBM's data management portfolio, visit http://www.software.ibm.com/data or call 914/766-1420.