[nemothekid]

>Was there nothing off the shelf that would have fit their needs?

I can't think of any solid distributed RDBMS that would have been around in 2004. Does anyone with more knowledge have any idea (open or not)?

[Keyframe]

IBM DB2 and Oracle 9i were around for sure. Other solutions as well. DB landscape was well-established back then.

[dsparkman]

They were, but rediculously expensive at the time. $100k+ at the time to have a non-replicated version on Oracle running on a multicore server. Dealing with Oracle was like dealing with the mob.

[Keyframe]

Indeed, but that's a whole other issue.

[gaius]

DEC RDB might have done it, if it was still available.