For larger warehouses the competition comes from Oracle's 9i database and IBM's DB2, and these have the advantage of running on machines from IBM, Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard that are familiar to big businesses.

FORBES: The Resurrection of NCR

It was well liked by its customers, who needed software and training to help them run IBM's DB2 database system, but it could not seem to turn a consistent profit.

FORBES: Silicon Prairie Dog

When the acquisition closes in the first quarter, Rational will be the fifth division within IBM software, along with Websphere, DB2 database, Tivoli management products and Lotus collaborative software.

FORBES

For the effort against smallpox, IBM is contributing a fleet of its eServer p690s running its DB2 database software.

FORBES: Help IBM Take On Smallpox

Consolidation has its fans, even within IBM, which is out there selling its own big-database product, DB2.

FORBES: Data Of Reckoning

And although many of IBM's efforts in corporate markets, such as e-commerce, will center around the mainframe version of DB2, it is the NT version of DB2 that is clearly driving its database business in small and medium-size companies.

CNN: IBM, the world's oldest start-up