There is actually a great number of college students playing with DB2. They usually do so with DB2 Express-C, because it's free and production ready, so it's ideal for students and startups (even though we have large corporations who use it as well). DB2 Express-C is easy to work with, easy to administer, and has the same core code as commercial versions used by the largest companies in the world. System Z provides a nice hardware/software combo, but don't be fooled into thinking that DB2 LUW (Linux/Unix/Windows) is not "serious" or anything but great, really. DB2 provides many useful innovations that are not available to Oracle users. And thanks to DB2 Express-C, many of these benefits are available for free.<p>DISCLAIMER: I work for IBM in the DB2 team.