Re: Market Share (was: Wrapped PLSQL)

From: Karsten Farrell <kfarrell_at_belgariad.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 22:48:15 GMT
Message-ID: <PkZv9.1647$hD4.121960590@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com>

Pablo Sanchez wrote:

> Karsten Farrell <kfarrell_at_belgariad.com> wrote in news:gaYv9.1630
> $Fd4.120393947_at_newssvr14.news.prodigy.com:

>>Pablo Sanchez wrote:
>>
>>>Daniel Morgan <dmorgan_at_exesolutions.com> wrote
>>>
>>>>Sold?
>>>
>>>Yes, Sybase Inc sold version 4.x (I think it was 4.2 or 4.9) to
>>>Microsoft. This was when Sybase was the big bad wolf out in the RDBMS
>>>market. Oracle wasn't on the radar. Sybase got cocky, sold it to
>>>them, then blew it with System 10, Oracle came in and ... as they say
>>>.. the rest is history.
>>
>>Being a wee bit interested in history, I thought I might look up this
>>subject.
>>
>>1. 1977. Oracle wasn't the new kid on the block. In fact, Oracle was the
>>*first* company to release a commercial RDBMS after Dr. Codd defined
>>what that is. See http://www.oracle.com/corporate/index.html?story.html.

> 
> Sorry I wasn't clear Karsten... what I meant by "Oracle wasn't on the
> radar" was that market share wise, Sybase owned the market.

True ... but "market share" is open to interpretation. Witness the recent (May 2002) acquisition of Ingress by IBM. Right after that, IBM claimed to have passed Oracle in market share ... to which Oracle cried "foul" (because IBM included mainframes and Oracle is weak in that arena). See "IBM steals database crown from Oracle" (http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/05/08/020508hnibmontop.xml).

So I tend to leave those arguments to the marketing types ... of which, thankfully, I am not a member. Received on Wed Oct 30 2002 - 16:48:15 CST