In response to this:
Hi Philip,
I’ve just been working with Oracle’s XML DB for 10g. It does functionally exactly what you say IBM are thinking about. You appear to be ill-informed and have bought the IBM FUD. You should be more careful about what you say if you want to put yourself up as an opinion former. Maybe you should qualify your comments better?
Also IBM’s database certainly used to be 3 (or more?) different code bases depending upon which platform it was running on. Each had a different set of bugs and features. I think the whole thing was branded to appear to be one product, but it wasn’t. Which one of their multiple code bases are they talking about? All of them? In which decade?
Have a look at http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/xml/xmldb/index.html. I suggest you get a 10g database installed and work through the examples. Unless you’re too posh to actually use something before you form an opinion?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not an Oracle fan, but what you describe is what I’ve been working with for a while and not news. Not even that big a deal.
Regards
Francis Fish