Like Sybase's and Microsoft's database servers, DB2 can link to heterogeneous enterprise data sources. To this end, it ships with DB2 Extenders for text, XML, and even audio and video files.

In 1999, the database market reached $8 billion, up 18 percent from 1998, and is expected to reach $12.7 billion by 2004. IBM and Oracle each hold about 30 percent of the database market.