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Re: Wrapped PLSQL

From: Daniel Morgan <dmorgan_at_exesolutions.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 16:25:54 GMT
Message-ID: <3DC0080F.F96ACAC3@exesolutions.com>


Pablo Sanchez wrote:

> "Jim Kennedy" <kennedy-family_at_attbi.com> wrote in
> news:hSRv9.176689$%d2.60765_at_sccrnsc01:
>
> > No I don't believe they want to clone Oracle. Just saying they
> > don't actually invent a lot of things themselves. They don't do a
> > lot of original work (which is what Sybrand is suggesting).
>
> I think you might have misread what Sybrand wrote. He specifically
> said that MSoft would want to build an Oracle clone. There is no
> compelling business case put forward as to why this would be the case:
>
> Sybrand wrote:
>
> They have been purposively wrapped as not to give away some
> crown jewels, and to avoid to have Bill Gates build an Oracle
> clone.
>
> On the other front, we could go on and talk about whether MSoft
> invents or doesn't invent a lot of things themselves but that's a
> different thread than this one.
> --
> Pablo Sanchez, High-Performance Database Engineering
> http://www.hpdbe.com

Let me quote what Sybrand wrote:
"Did MS ever *invent* (as opposed to buy or usually steal) anything?"

I see nothing even remote close to your statement.

But as one who lives and works in the Redmond Washington area, and who has lots of friends at Microsoft, it is an acknowledged fact that their expertise is in marketing ... not technology unless one looks at what comes out of the Public Relations and Marketing departments. SQL Server would not exist were it not for an outright theft of Sybase. That a gun was not involved makes it no less a theft. Just as the fact that Kenneth Lay is not in a penitentiary does not mean that he and Enron do not steal more than every bank robber in the last century combined.

That being said I don't believe the point of wrapping is to prevent Microsoft, or anyone else, from duplicating Oracle. Anything can be reverse engineered. The point is to allow vendors of products to protect their source code from their competitors. And as someone that has worked on developing commercial products ... that is very much appreciated.

Could a competitor reverse engineer? Absolutely. But it slows them down and raises their costs. And that, in and of itself, is sufficient for the protection of intellectual property.

Daniel Morgan Received on Wed Oct 30 2002 - 10:25:54 CST

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