Re: How to determine database market share?

DA Morgan <damorgan_at_psoug.org> wrote:

> >>Your life must be exceedingly boring.
 

> > Fuck you.
 

> I'm impressed. Your command of the English language demonstrates
> a definite gift for expressing yourself with clarity.

What would you consider an appropriate response to your offering to the debate of "Your life must be exceedingly boring."?

I was asking what is a question of legitimate concern to people who are interested in databases generally, which surely must cover a good percentage of the readership of this group.

Your trite and childish response obtained the riposte it merited.

You may have noticed that *_in general_* and *_as a rule_* my posts to this group are not littered with expletives, and indeed in my reply I acknowledged your contribution to the group, indeed I was all the more disappointed that a "Your life must be exceedingly boring." response would come from *_YOU_* of all people, you who seem to spend a good deal of time answering (and helping) posters on the oracle groups.

I have never questioned your lifestyle habits and quite frankly, I don't give a flying fuck whether you spend all day every day (when you're not correcting students' exams) on this group or whether you dip in from time to time - that's for you to decide and your contribution to the group(s) are/will be measured on their merit.

Telling me that I don't have a life (or, sorry, a "boring" one) because I choose to ask a question of "you/the-group in general" is quite frankly insulting - I believe that it is I who am the person who was insulted first. I accept that my language was crude, and will apologise if you also apologise for your "boring life" remark.  

> > Oracle "was" primarliy a db company but not entirely but has in the
> > last two years been acquiring other (service based - Siebel, whatever)
> > companies like there's no tomorrow.
 

> As I said above: Your statement wasn't true 10 years ago.

OK, so you're making an acutal point here - you seem to be saying that Oracle has been more than a db company for some time - i.e. ten years? When in your NSHO did Oracle move from being a db company to something else? In any case, how is it relevant to my core question which remains *_how many Oracle installations are there_* in area x, y or z, and how can a neutral observer *_try_* to determine how much of a market there is for Oracle's rivals, which was the thrust of my original question - or does that make my life boring again?  

> > Would it be fair to suggest that up until about 1-2 years ago Oracle
> > was *_primarily_* a db company, but has now moved very much into the
> > "added value" services sector of the market. Sorry about my sloppy
> > wording, but one can't always write a novel in response to a newsgroup
> > post.
 

> No it would not.

OK, feel free to expand a wee bit on this succint response.  

> > You're bang smack on the mark with that one. I just press install and
> > let her rip...and never heard of a site license.
 

> Obviously. So this is a good time to put on your thinking cap and
> see if there is another obscenity suitable for the occassion.

<Expletetive deleted...> - OK, how often do you actually bother to read the blurb that comes with practially any software these days?

There could be a licence out there which obliges my to surrender my first-born to use their programme - would I agree? Of course, because I wouldn't have read the damn thing in the first place. Come to actually enforcing the clause would be a different matter though...  

> > Would you believe that I have?
 

> No.

Actually I pay far more attention to site/group licences than to individual ones - probably because in ignoring clauses in one-person licences I'm only implicating myself, whereas with a site licence, I'm acting for and on behalf of others, and would take more care.  

> >> I would suggest that before you engage in a debate on
> >>a topic you familiarize yourself with it.
 

> > My point is/was that it is difficult to get any reasonable idea of the
> > number of paid for installs ofa particular db server in a given
> > (country, region, continent... whatever), because what one gets on a
> > web site for a printed licence is not necessarily what customer x who
> > is planning on 250 installs is going to pay - you would agree with
> > that, I presume?
 

> And you never will which is why your entire quest is worse than quixotic
> ... it is idiotic.

It is idiotic to try and determine some sort of rational metric (which I have suggested is best determined by job-ads) to determine db market share?

I fail to see why it is idiotic - difficult maybe, but certainly not idiotic. And certainly relevant to this group - all of us leading the boring lives that we do, as opposed to your thrilling one, hopping from Hawaii to Japan at the drop of a hat? The letters f and y spring to mind...  

> >>Is 1 $10,000 license for product A worth 1 $2,500 license for product
> >>B? Is it worth 4X as much? What if one is a per user license and the
> >>other a per CPU license? A site license? What is one system is connected
> >>to users via client-server and the other to an application server
> >>connected to the internet?
  

> > Here you are merely echoing my points
 

> I am not. You don't have a point. There is no way to determine market
> share because there is no definition of what "market share" is. If you
> define it and can get the metrics, you can't, then you can go into
> competition with Gartner and other scum.

You are correct, definition of market share is at best tricky. I am suggesting that looking at job postings on groups for an area would be/might be a reasonable metric for determining market penetration.  

> > *_SWEET DIVINE JESUS_*. I know!!!!! See above for the issue about
> > market share and revenue - I am attempting (in the face of (so-called)
> > internet surveys, geek-speak, marketo-babble to determine a decent
> > metric
 

> Once again using very small words: You can not!

You are saying that there is no way of doing this? OK, I'll go direct - why is not using job-postings for a given area not the best metric for db penetration in a given area? If you tell me it is not, then I would merely ask you for a better metric.  

> No doubt you have another obscenity loaded and ready to fire here too.

You know full-well that my posts are not littered with expletives - otherwise I'm sure that I would have been kill-filed by you ages ago.  

> >>You might want to go back to watching American Idol. ;-)
 

> > What is American Idol?
 

> An Oracle account.

? I googled. Some sort of Big Brother thing?  

> >>Basically I've said what Billy said but with more words.
 

> > See my response.
 

> I did and I was so impressed I hid in my closet for 1/2 an hour
> trembling at the thought of crossing someone with such an impressive
> repetoire.

I understand that there are people in America called "therapists" (in Europe they're normally called friends - except you don't have to pay them) who might be able to help you with this. Best of luck.

Paul...

-- 

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