How UDA Differs from Other Strategies (continued)
Microsoft®, while recognizing these benefits, believes they may be difficult for some organizations to attain. A universal database approach may require expensive and time-consuming movement to and maintenance of corporate data in the DBMS. It may require tools and applications to support it. And it may require compromises in the selection of supporting products. Customers' applications will need to either implicitly support this architecture, which is unlikely, or be customized to integrate with it, which could be expensive.
It is very important to note that Universal Data Access does not exclude any data stores, so the two strategies, which may appear to compete, actually cooperate. In fact, OLE DB providers for a number of new "universal database" products are currently under development. Using the Universal Data Access strategy, customers will be able to use data in their existing databases, universal database servers, desktop applications, mainframes, and so on. Organizations that combine Universal Data Access and universal database products will ultimately benefit from a broad choice of best-of-breed tools, applications, and DBMS products available from leading data access vendors.