Philip Howard, IT analyst with Bloor Research in the U.K., provides a comprehensive comparison of IBM and Oracle systems for data warehousing.  In his review, he examines many aspects of IBM Smart Analytics System and Oracle Exadata 2-2 to determine which approach (Oracle's one-size-fits-all vs IBM's workload optimization) is best.  His conclusion:  "When we commenced this exercise we expected to find that there were some areas in which IBM excelled and others in which Oracle did so. We have been surprised to find that that is not the case and that the IBM Smart Analytics System out-competes Oracle Exadata in almost every area we have examined."