IBM contributes 'Cloudscape' database

IBM CONTRIBUTES DATABASE SOFTWARE TO THE APACHE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION 

-- Increases Efforts to Drive Innovation Around Java Application Development

SAN FRANCISCO, August 3, 2004...IBM and the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)
today announced that IBM is contributing more than half million lines of
relational database code to the ASF.

IBM is offering "Derby," a copy of  its current Cloudscape relational
database product, to the ASF to spur more communal innovation for Java
application development.   By contributing the software to the open source
community,  IBM hopes to accelerate innovation around Java applications,
which will in turn create new business opportunities based on a broad
spectrum of applications, including those that use embedded databases and
those for small businesses.

IBM has contributed the code to Apache under the ASF corporate contributor
license grant.  The project will initially be managed by the Apache
Incubator, which will inspect the code to ensure that it conforms to the
organization's standards for licensing and code integrity and will oversee
the formation of the development community.   Starting immediately,  the ASF
and IBM will begin working with the community to establish Derby as a
leading, open source, database offering.

Derby is a Java-based relational database with a two megabyte footprint that
is fully embeddable and requires zero administration support.  The software
is  ideal for developers, enabling them to easily build and deploy
applications and workloads that do not require an enterprise-class database
system.   Derby is targeted for the 30 percent of solutions that do not
require an enterprise database, such as small web sites, point-of-sales
systems, local registries and repositories and small departmental
applications.

By making this contribution, IBM is enhancing Java development with a
significant offering that gives developers and customers a new option for
Java based embedded database functionality.   With today's news, IBM is
reinforcing its commitment to the Java community, which is comprised of more
than six million developers worldwide.  Currently, IBM employs nearly 4,000
Java professionals and offers more than 100 Java-enabled products and
solutions.

Today's news is a natural evolution of IBM's commitment to the open source
community.  Currently, IBM participates in and contributes to more than 150
open source projects, more than any other company.  These projects include
Linux, the Globus Alliance, Eclipse and an already established relationship
with Apache.

Derby, by being contributed to the open source community by IBM, will
benefit greatly from the collaborative development efforts of potentially
thousands of Open Source developers.  Derby is the next step in IBM's
strategy to help businesses create, use, and innovate around database
management systems.

IBM is also announcing support from more than a dozen business partners and
Linux distributors such as Red Hat, Novell, SUSE, Turbolinux and Red Flag.
Once Derby is formally approved by the ASF and accepted by the community,
IBM plans to base its IBM Cloudscape offering on the same technology as the
Apache code and market it commercially.

"By open sourcing Derby we hope to accelerate the development of Java-based
applications and to drive innovation around Linux and Java communities,"
said Janet Perna, general manager, IBM Data Management Software. "We're
excited to work with Apache and look forward to working with the community
to create innovation around this unique database management offering. "

"The Apache Software Foundation is pleased to help bring the Derby project
to the open source community," said Greg Stein, Chairman of the Apache
Software Foundation.  "By accepting Derby into the incubator, we are taking
a big step forward in providing a turnkey database solution to Java
application developers."

"Recognizing the value of this contribution to the open source community,
the Apache DB project is pleased to sponsor Derby's entrance into the Apache
Incubator," said John McNally, chairman of the Apache DB Project.

About Cloudscape

Cloudscape is a Java-based,  production-quality, fully-transactional
relational database with a two megabyte footprint that is fully embeddable
and requires zero database administration support.  This allows all
management to be controlled by the application. Cloudscape has rapidly
gained a reputation for ease of use and reliability among IBM's development
community.  Today the software is embedded into more than 70 offerings
within IBM's software portfolio of offerings and is a key part of IBM's
Workplace offerings, WebSphere Portal and WebSphere Application Server.

Later this year, IBM plans to release a commercial version of  Cloudscape to
customers and business partners.  The offering will based on the same
technology as the Apache code and updated as needed based on feedback from
the development community.

Over the next few weeks, the open source code will be available for download
from Apache.org.  In the meantime, IBM will make available a binary copy of
the Derby code from www.developerworks.com

About IBM's Information Management Portfolio There are more than 60 million
DB2 users from 425,000 companies worldwide relying on IBM DB2 Information
Management Solutions.  IBM is the only data management software vendor to
provide customers with integrated solutions for database management, tools,
content management, enterprise information integration and business
intelligence.  For more information please visit
http://www.software.ibm.com/data.

About the Apache Software Foundation

The Apache Software Foundation provides organizational, legal, and financial
support for a broad range of open source software projects. The Foundation
provides an established framework for intellectual property and financial
contributions that simultaneously limits contributors potential legal
exposure. Through a collaborative and  meritocratic development process,
Apache projects deliver enterprise-grade, freely available software products
that attract large communities of users. The pragmatic Apache License makes
it easy for all users, commercial and individual, to deploy Apache products.
For more information on the Apache Software Foundation, please see
http://www.apache.org/.