Relational, schmelational. SAP is by far the world's largest seller of relational applications. In fact, it may be the world's largest reseller of relational database management systems -- especially Oracle -- as well as a top 10 vendor of original RDBMS technology because of MaxDB. Even so, SAP has publicly stated that it views XML-based services as a liberation from the limitations of the relational model. And before XML, SAP's preferred interface was BAPI. To SAP, the structure of objects matters.

There are many ways to integrate. Once upon a time, SAP was known for imposing huge monoliths of integrated databases onto its customers. Things have changed. Sure, those services I mentioned drill down to, on average, several hundred tables each. But there are also services-based integration and composite application development tools. And semi-ad-hoc, portal-based collaboration around business intelligence reports. Plus all the standard integration you'd expect from a complex data-mart architecture and a portal-based suite of BI/dashboard tools. There are many different ways to integrate your processes and systems, and different ones will be appropriate for different purposes.

Microsoft, SAP, IBM and Oracle all have their share of technical clunkers. And even when they're right, it's often from borrowing smaller companies' ideas. But you have to listen to what they say. And when you do, you'll often hear at least three very different things.

For some of my more detailed thoughts about these vendors and their strategies, please see my three main blogs: the Monash Report (www.monashreport.com), DBMS2 (www.dbms.com) and Software Memories (www.softwarememories.com).

Curt A. Monash is a consultant in Acton, Mass. You can reach him at curtmonash@monash.com.