However, of the four, only Oracle has committed to a ship date. Its Discoverer ad hoc query tool will support Linux for the first time when an upgrade, Version 3i, ships in six months, said officials in Redwood Shores, California
The other companies—Informix, Hummingbird Communications Ltd. and Cognos —said their schedules will be driven by user demand, which so far is hardly overwhelming. "At the moment, there's not much demand for production-ready Linux systems for BI [business intelligence]," said Philip Russom, an analyst at Hurwitz Group Inc., in Framingham, Mass.
At LinuxWorld in New York this week, Informix, of Menlo Park, California, will announce Linux ports for its warehousing databases, Extended Parallel Server and Red Brick Decision Server, as well as its DataStage data transformation and movement tool.
Meanwhile, Hummingbird, of North York, Ontario, this month shipped a Linux version of its Enterprise Information Portal and said that it would also enable its BI and data movement tools for Linux. Ottawa-based Cognos said it would elaborate on its Linux plans in coming months.
Many data warehousing professionals regard Linux as a platform for the future, but not for today. Typical may be the perspective of Tom Grimmett, data warehouse manager for software developer Autodesk Grimmett said he likes Linux in principle and credits BI vendors for Linux initiatives—but he's not about to abandon Unix and Windows NT any time soon.
"A lot of people want to jump on the bandwagon and get on the latest stuff," said Grimmett, in Bedford, New Hampshire. "But I think there's a lot of value in keeping a really stable environment. I don't think you get a lot of bang by hopping around different platforms."
