Support for Front Ends (was: FLAME Re: What about the Oracle vs Sybase Ads?)

des_at_helix.nih.gov (David E. Scheim) writes:
>>>The Microsoft/Sybase DBMS engine has more front-end tool support than any
>>>other, which is the real-world benefit of a standard.
 

>>Wrong. Factually not true. It ain't so. I'm happy to prove this.
>>Give me your definition of "more front-end tool support" and I will
>>demonstrate the falsity of your position. (Always has been, BTW,
>>despite Microsoft advertising to the contrary.)
 

>>In fact, give me as many definitions as you like, and I'll prove your
>>assertion false for all of them, for any point or period of time.
 

>I think to anyone following the trade press this may indicate that you don't
>have an objective view of the DBMS market.

Ooh. Proof by blatant assertion, with appeal to 'anyone'. Good freshman tactics. You lose.

I think to anyone with a clue, it would indicate that I know something you don't.

Specifically, I have the hard copy lists of the ISV tools that Microsoft and Oracle each support. Oracle's got well over 2x as many tools as MicroSoft SQL Server.

Furthermore, there are very few tools that support only Sybase/MicroSoft and not Oracle, while there are a number of tools that support Oracle and not Sybase/Microsoft.

Some people may recall advertising from a year ago, by Microsoft, showing two stacks of disks, and claiming Microsoft SQL Server had 'more front ends' than Oracle Server for OS/2, its perceived competitor of the time.

Turns out Microsoft was apparently counting things like Gupta SQL Windows and its attendant network connectivity widget as two products. Given that kind of counting, the correct count for Oracle would have been in the hundreds.

[Before we go yet another round on this one, I should confess that my job title last year was "senior industry analyst", so I'm perhaps a bit more awash in such trivia than the average person might be.]

If people really care about this, I could go count all the tools and give you the numbers for each. Or should I assume that you Sybase bigots have lost interest?

Note please that Oracle and Sybase/Microsoft have, between them, far more tools than anybody *else*, so if you're keen on having a zillion front end tools from which to choose, these RDBMSs are good candidates.

 -Tom

-- 
Thomas Cox      DoD #1776   '91 CB 750 Nighthawk   tcox_at_qiclab.scn.rain.com
    The Platinum Rule:  "Do Unto Others As They Want To Be Done Unto"