Indeed, Picciano said, large ISVs (independent software vendors) such as Nextance and Justsystems have shifted to using XML as an internal representation format over the past year or two. "As we've introduced Viper to them, they've said, 'This is exactly what we were hoping somebody would step up and do,'" he said.

If people's interest in XML has flagged, it's not because XML isn't out there; rather, it's the fault of inelegant XML handling databases, Picciano said. "Because today's generation of XML handling databases has been woefully inefficient in handling XML data, many customers have kept it separate," he said. "It's been spread out across disk systems, not centrally managed as a data asset. If you talk to some people in IT, they're unaware of the amount of XML their organizations are using. … But I really have yet to go to a client and talk to them about XML as a data technology and have them say, 'We don't have any need for that.'"

Viper's XML power has gotten all the press. But two other biggies catch the eye of Bloor Research's Howard: new compression technologies, brought with Viper's "Venom" technology, and the fact that Viper is IBM's stake in the ground in the data warehousing space.

Read the full story on eWEEK.com: IBM's DB2 'Viper' Update Bites at Last