Re: Microsoft destroys TPC-C records!

So here I am reading this thread, and it occurred to me that Microsoft pundants always sound like futuristic, techno-head, pseudo-scientific schoolgirls heady with excitement from the latest wiz-bang (picture the hyphenated word "wiz-bang" in strikethru font) technology from Microsoft. In short -- groupies. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, and "evil" is everything not Microsoft.

But, I can understand this -- until I spent my first hour using Solaris, I was one of them. I'd get all excited about the release of the next big thing. Then the release would come (finally) and I'd open the package, load the software, and sure enough; the features were there -- along with a list of caveats that made these features -- well let's just say less featureable than I had hoped. So I would read everthing I could find to get the latest scuttlebutt on the next release, and the process would start all over again. I may have been confusing corporate success with great technology.

It's like those things you buy in the back of boy's life magazine in the "Gifts and Gimmaks" section. Looks good, sounds good, not what they made me think it was.

I'm not a Microsoft basher. I'm not an anything basher. But look at the facts.

What database platform does the IRS use to process returns? What database does Proctor & Gamble use for their ERP system? What database does the Social Security Admin use to track benefits?

When you look at the really big, important, mission-critical systems out there, virtually none of them run on Microsoft. On the other hand, I'm not using a SUN 10000 for a workstation either.

Microsoft is a pretty good desktop software maker.

HOWEVER, Microsoft is a tremendously successful company. Why? Because they sell their products. Most things in this world are sold rather than bought. People like being told that they are buying the right thing. They also like turnkey solutions.

Microsoft's marketing job has been outstanding by any standard. Microsoft leveraged dos into windows, windows into windows nt and win 95/98, and now finally windows 2000. That's just plain good business, and I'd do the same thing. It's the job of every business to leverage their market, form parterships, present their products with as much excitement and enthusium as possible, and yes even thwart their competition. Microsoft has done this while everyone else just whines about it.

Because of this, I think we should be bashing Sybase for their crappy marketing instead of Microsoft for their crappy software. Whoever has been in charge of selling stuff at Sybase for the last decade should be whipped. I mean here's a company that makes lean, open software that works great and allows an expert dba to do some pretty amazing things with very little (reletivly speaking) in the way of resources. If Sybase or IBM had done their job selling their products, we would not have to sit here and be nauseated by claims that Microsoft is better because any knucklehead can use it.

humph!
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Jason Webster Received on Fri Mar 10 2000 - 19:54:19 CST