You hold in your hands the final issue of DBMS. That's the bad news. The good news is that the end of DBMS's highly successful run is also the beginning of a new magazine. Next month, DBMS subscribers will receive the premiere issue of Intelligent Enterprise, the product of a merger between DBMS and its sister publication, Database Programming & Design.
For us, there's the inevitable catch in the throat when we say "the last issue" of DBMS. Along with Database Programming & Design, DBMS has been a chief conduit of practical ideas and information about database and application development. For more than 10 years, DBMS has featured clear-eyed analysis of new products and methods - some of the best to be found anywhere, written by both top industry experts and humble developers with a desire to pass on experiences to their peers.
I know this because as editor-in-chief of Database Programming & Design for many of those years, I had to compete against DBMS. When Miller Freeman acquired DBMS some five years ago, the company naturally considered merging the two database publications. But thanks to the wisdom of our top managers, we kept the publications running separately, competitively - and in recent years, just down the hall from each other. The decision was sensible not only because the two magazines were quite successful, but because they spoke to readers with very different voices.
From the beginning, Database Programming & Design's editorial focus was on large systems, then running mostly on mainframes. Our readers were in corporate MIS. DBMS, on the other hand, focused initially on the power-user desktop database systems, which were about to become ground zero for the client/server revolution. DBMS quickly became the magazine of record for client/server development. Before long, of course, in desperation every computer industry magazine and tabloid put "client/server" prominently in its name or tagline: Many of those magazines have also ceased to exist or have moved on to another buzzword.
With DBMS, client/server was part of its organic matter; DBMS was serving a rising class of professionals who were building departmental systems that were closer to the business. These systems had to be built rapidly; they had to use standardized data access interfaces, often to remote servers; and they had to be built for scalability using commodity parts. They also had to be graphical so business users could leverage their power. Because of a good/bad combination of wise reticence and institutional inertia, MIS generally had trouble jumping as fast or as high as business users wanted them to with client/server. This opened up a huge opportunity for the classic DBMS reader - and caused a lot of teeth gnashing among the majority of Database Programming & Design's readers.
Times have changed since those wild days. Today we talk about thin clients, fat servers, and Internet architectures that sometimes sound like a throwback. However, none of our more modern architectures would be possible without the trailblazing work of the client/server revolution. The movement changed people as well; corporate IT embraces change much more readily, while business users now seem to recognize that a strong IT function is vital to the success of information-driven efforts. DBMS is now read by the "establishment" - IT executives and managers - as well as the line of business developers and administrators.
In other words, the time is right to merge our two magazines and pursue a common goal: the intelligent enterprise. We will write about an adventure that requires a much closer synchronization of business and IT objectives. Customer relationship management, information supply chains, business intelligence, and enterprise resource planning are ambitious goals that rely on business/IT synchronicity. You will find many of your favorite writers featured in Intelligent Enterprise, delivering the in-depth and practical information to which you have grown accustomed, but with a stronger vision of technology's integration with business objectives.
We will have much more to say about the new magazine next month. But here, in this last issue of DBMS, let's raise a toast to all the esteemed writers, editors, and readers who made this more than just a magazine!