When Oracle beta customers were testing Oracle Database 11gR2 many were praising the new fangled columnar compression that helped reduce their databases to a more manageable level. Many of these customers used the beta code on their existing test systems and their test data to see what benefits they would get when they upgraded to the latest release.
Imagine their surprise when Oracle thanked them all for their loyalty and testing, and restricted the use of hybrid columnar compression to "Exadata Only" systems, when the beta showed that this capability is built into the Oracle Database software, and has no reliance on Exadata at all.
Oracle will even let you backup a table space on Exadata that has data that is columnar compressed and restore it to a non-Exadata server. You cannot query or access this data after the restore, but if you alter the table and "un-compress" it you can. This also shows that the Oracle Database can read and understand the columnar compressed data.
IBM on the other hand makes enhancements available to existing customers, on their existing platforms. When index, XML, and temporary table compression were introduced in DB2 9.7, all existing DB2 customers could immediately take advantage of these enhancements when they upgraded to this release.
Who would you rather do business with? The company that innovates and makes these enhancements available to all customers, or the one that adds features, but restricts access to only those that buy new hardware and specialized software licenses that are not even needed for the feature?
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