Re: SQL server Vs Oracle

Nuno Souto wrote in message <7hkbi7$9sf$1_at_m2.c2.telstra-mm.net.au>...
>David <desertfox_at_thegrid.net> wrote in message
>news:Kve%2.1753$i4.99263_at_alfalfa.thegrid.net...
>> such as Straw Man.
>
>Hey I didn't mention Straw Man, someone else did!
>
>> which in turn allows them to prosper and make better products. The
Commodore
>> Amiga was a superior computer for its time but it has since faded from
>> memory. In that sense, Microsoft will always be around to support its
>> products.
>
>So have the X86 and the 386! Both direct competitors of the Amiga.
>And much worse technology. What a silly argument!

As a former die-hard Amiga owner (the A500, A2000, A1200) I think I can vouch for the Amiga community and say that what happened to Amiga was the result of management's unwillingness to spend money to market their product (I think I saw an Amiga commercial exactly twice on TV) and what little marketing they put into the computer made the public at large perceive it as a gaming machine. So we, the Amiga community, received very little support from Commodore and over time it was obvious that Windows was slowly catching up and the Amiga was left for dead.

So Commodore's failure was in part due to their marketing because they surely had a superior product (which they bought by the way; something Microsoft has been smart enough to do to other companies) and it was not only superior to PCs but also to the Mac at the time and for approximately 6-7 years after their initial introduction.

>Disapperance is NOT proof of importance of marketing over technology.
>Cripes, most of the hardware and software of 5 years ago in the PC
>world has almost disappeared.

Uh yes, actually disappearance of a product AND the company itself IS proof. Why don't you do yourself a favor and take a marketing class. Maybe it will open your eyes as to how much more important marketing is to the survivability of a company and/or its product. You can have a wonderful product but if you don't market it correctly it won't sell. And more sales means more money and more support (not only from the parent company of the product, but from other users). And this brings me to another point of 3rd parties. Microsoft products are so universally supported that 3rd party support is almost ALWAYS tremendous. As an Internet Web developer, I can say that it has been nothing short of fantastic the amount of support I have from 3rd party companies.

Anyone with at least a slight interest in developing powerful database backed web sites can learn and develop ASP sites in less than a day due to the tremendous support and ease of use of Microsoft tools. Just take a look around the web and you will notice that a large number of sites are now ASP sites (.asp extensions).

>BTW, MS may always be around to support their products but will
>they bother to? Try to get a fix for a problem with Word 2.
>It's only 5 years since it was replaced, yet MS will tell you to get lost.
>It's THEIR product! How come they ARE around and do NOT support it?

ONLY 5 years??? Do you realize that a computer year is equivelent to 5 dog years? 5 years is equivelent to medieval history in this Silicon Age. Anyone who is still using Word 2 deserves their hell. I always laugh when I hear of people trying to upgrade their old 386 computer by buying some accelerator chip for the same cost as a newer & faster chip.

As quoted in a rather famous Stephen King book: "You can't polish a Turd!"

and anything 5 years or older is most likely a turd due to the rapid advances in technology.

>Of course they can't be expected to support old versions forever.
>But 5 years isn't such. Except for the 30 second TV attention
>span MS supporters, of which there are unfortunately so many.
>These people don't understand they are shooting themselves in the
>foot for letting the PC market be dominated by these hit-and-run
>short term product life tactics.

30 TV attention isn't Microsoft specific but more so of an American phenomenon. Joe 6-pack is happy as long as he can have his sports on TV. Why do you think someone like Clinton was elected! (BTW, I am a full blooded American so please don't flame me thinking I am a Frenchman.. God knows there is nothing worse than being labeled a Frenchman. <G> )

>Not according to the supporters of MS database products! They claim
>they are so easy to use clients now don't need DBA's, developers,
>analysts and such. Which ORACLE and so many others claim are
>necessary. One has to wonder why does MS bother with MSDN and
>MCSE training. After all if NT is SOOOO easy, why do we NEED these?

Would you please provide the sources of these MS claims. I have never seen any such claims. It sounds like you are getting a little desperate in your goal of bashing the Microsoft Juggernaut. I have seen incredible claims from all sides of the argument but I wouldn't be so naive as to associate these individual claims as views supported by MSFT themselves.

>> Microsoft excels in this cheaper bracket of machines and it is only
obvious
>> to the casual observer that these inexpesive NT machines are going to
slowly
>> replace the need for the user unfriendly UNIX boxes.
>
>NT may replace some UNIX servers as a server. Servers are NOT by definition
>"user" boxes. So they can't be "user unfriendly" boxes, OK?
>A casual observer with a 30 second TV attention span might overlook that
>detail...

NT IS a user box, NT Server is a server and they are both 1000 times more friendly than most Unix boxes are to use. Do you think user friendliness is 'user box' specific? So I guess Server admins don't deserve 'user' friendliness or server developers don't deserve 'user' friendliness? I always thought people who use computers, whether those computers were clients or servers, were considered users.

>Be careful with the quotations of MS marketing drivel... It's not possible
to
>bend so much to cretin MS marketing arguments without exposing one's
>logic to easy shots...
>
>And if you think NT is easier to handle than UNIX, you obviously have not
>done much front line work with BOTH of them!

Other than being a hardcore user AND a hardcore web developer of both, then no, I don't have much experience with them... LOL.

>> same while the computing needs of Word has gone up dramatically. Who
gives a
>> rats ass if Word takes up 100 megs of hard drive space when 18 Gig drives
>> are becoming standard? Or who cares if Word takes more memory when most
>> average systems ship with 128 Megs of RAM?
>
>The IT manager who has to pay for the upgrade of thousands of PC's gives a
>rats ass and cares, THAT IS WHO! Particularly when he's just been through
>one of those 2 years ago from W3.1 to W95!

And the upgrade from 3.1 to 95 was a tremendous upgrade! That upgrade to 95 has surely lasted more than 2 years. 95 is so usable a large majority still uses it.

>The market is not only made of startups who can afford the latest.
>In fact, those are a very small percentage...

So as a startup, what are my options.? To go out and buy a used 486 with Word 2 for $800 or buy a brand new PII for $1000 which will run circles around the 486? Hmm... let me think... thats a toughie. You don't have a choice. Our company is a startup eCommerce company and buying 5 brand new computers including a server is not an issue. When you have to spend $2 million in marketing, $15k of computers is an afterthought. Besides, you get to write off the depreciation! You really do need to look into taking a business class... maybe you will come away with an understanding of why buying newer computers is really not such a bad idea.

>> Being efficient is desirable but
>> when reality says that our hardware is overbuilt by a factor of 10,
Word's
>> processing needs hardly ever come anywhere close to taxing most modern
>> machines.
>
>Your hardware may be. But the majority of the world's PC's in use for
business
>are most definitely not in that class. And I've got news for you: in 1
year's
>time,
>be prepared to sell your PC and get a new faster one. And keep doing it
forever
>EVERY year. Now, do YOU still think efficiency is not important?

Once again, you fail to understand the changing industry. People are upgrading less and less as time goes on. Believe it or not, but computers ARE getting to the point where it really ISN'T necessary to upgrade every 6 months.

>I challenge you and all those who think like you to come back here in 5
years
>time and tell us all that you still have the latest hw and sw and have done
so
>for
>EVERY SINGLE ONE of those 5 years. Last time I did this, I found out that
>none of those illuminati were left in the industry: they all had left.
>Talk about long term, eh?...

Once again, 5 years is forever in Silicon Valley. It's like saying "Come back in 100 years, and EVERY SINGLE ONE of your cars will be gone."

>> Your idealistic 'silver bullet' drivel really gets us no where in trying
to
>> determine which solution will work best. Just look around and see how
many
>> companies are choosing the Microsoft solution and are actually achieving
>> great success.
>>
>
>Here we go with the "how many" argument. Isn't it clear by now this line
>doesn't work with me? That is EXACTLY the 60's "buy IBM" argument.
>We all saw what that ended up in...

Last time I checked, IBM was doing pretty well. Their AS400 is still the most popular computer in the world.

>The drivel is NOT mine, buddy. MS blindfolded supporters ARE the ones
saying
>NT and SQL Server IS the silver bullet, all you gotta do to scale it is ADD
>memory!

You are having a conversation with me. Who are these MS supporters you keep talking about? Are you have a parallel conversation with a whole group of people?

>What a SAD JOKE...

Hahaha.. oh.. what were we laughing about again?

>> Netscape was king. MSFT marketing defeated Netscape, not its technical
>> superiority.
>
>NO. They did NOT use marketing to defeat N. They used predatory
monopolistic
>tactics by flogging their product for free to create a demand for it. That
is
>NOT marketing, buddy. It has a very specific name in places where those
>practices are illegal.

Firstly, this practice of beating your competitor by any means necessary is promoted in our society and is often referred to as Capitalism. BTW, how did they 'create' a demand for their browser? Last time I checked, people liked choice, and the emergence of the Internet coincided with this new choice. Seems like Microsoft once again knew what the public wanted and filled this need with another choice.

Let me give you a little education as to why Microsoft is currently being harrassed by the Justice Department for so-called 'monopolistic' practices. Do you know how much Bill Gates gave to the Democratic party during the elections? NOTHING. In good spirit, the democractic government is now going after Microsoft and Bill with a vengence. Unfortunately Joe-6 pack doesn't understand this.

>And even free, it took them nearly four years to get to a narrow majority.
>They also had to bundle it with the OS to get people to use the "free"
product.
>Says a lot for the quality of the thing and people's willingness to use it,
>doesn't it?

The fact that Microsoft wasn't even in the business of making browsers until late in the game and now leads that market says a lot for Microsoft.

>> >And market share price was never a measure of any technical advantage.
>>
>> Wrong again. Market share and market dominance is a large aspect of
>> technical superiority from a longevity standpoint. People choosing
certain
>> technologies are actually making an investment in that technology and if
>> that particular technology is not advanced or supported down the road,
then
>> it was a really bad choice.
>
>That one doesn't even deserve a serious reply!

I still haven't received a serious reply from you so I don't expect one.

Ein Volk, Ein Microsoft, Ein Bill

David Received on Sat May 15 1999 - 14:34:19 CDT