Re: Beware! the days of Oracle may be numbered

From: Mark B. Wallace <mwallace_at_NOSPAM.dbarchitechs.com>
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1999 08:13:37 -0800
Message-ID: <36EBE031.73733E7B@NOSPAM.dbarchitechs.com>

Dear "Chicken Little",

The only problem with your "theory" is that Oracle stock has taken worse falls at least twice in the past decade, only to recover handsomely (and then some). I taught an Oracle class last week in NYC at one of the largest mutual funds in the world. They are converting from M$ SQL Server to Oracle as fast as they can. Tomorrow, I start a project to build a brand-new e-commerce system for a subsidiary of a Fortune 100 company. They are planning to spend over $5,000,000 in the next five months to get the software operational. Guess what? They are using Oracle for all database functions, both OLTP and DSS. Basically, what these shops (and a lot of others like them) are thinking is: "Don't send a boy to do a man's job."

There is no doubt that M$ pricing, combined with the popular delusion that it is simpler to administer, will get them a lot of business. But a lot of that is new database business, that may well end up converting to Oracle in the long run. I can also make a reasonable case that M$ is in more danger than Oracle right now (even though the stock prices don't reveal that yet). Linux and the impending Windows 2000 disaster (you heard it here first), may well put a major "ding" in their "mind-share."

Finally, for you to deduce anything about a company's long-term business prospects from the short-term performance of its common stock is, IMHO, preposterous. You may have followed the history of DBMS packages for decades (as have I), but you sure haven't followed the history of the stock market very well.

Mark Wallace

"KeyStroke (Jack L. Swayze Sr.)" wrote: