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

Note that comp.databases.ingres has been removed from the distribution.

des_at_helix.nih.gov (David E. Scheim) writes:
> tcox_at_qiclab.scn.rain.com (Thomas Cox) writes:
>>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.
 

>>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.

>I'm afraid it's very difficult to give a quantitative assessment on the
>number of useful tools available for each server. You certainly cannot
>count vaporware -- only delivered products. Also, I would find one major
>development tool more useful than a minor tool, for example, with 20
>vertical market products built on it counted as separate tools. It's
>certainly not possible to rely on either vendor to be paragons of accuracy
>in their advertising. I don't really see any other way to get a weighted
>count of useful tool support for each engine other than rely upon an
>educated reader to follow the coverage in the trade press.

Quite the contrary. It's surprisingly easy to get a quantitative assessment. I've done it. You can do it to, with a few phone calls, most of them to toll-free 800 numbers. (Sorry, international readers.)

Your replies resemble Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. I gather at this point that you've completely abandoned your original position, quoted above, that

>>>>>The Microsoft/Sybase DBMS engine has more front-end tool support than any
>>>>>other

and now you are saying that it's not number of tools AT ALL. No, now it's "useful" tools, or "major" tools.

And again, you want the reader to "follow the coverage in the trade press", rather than read this newsgroup.

Shall we belabor the difference in public relations dollars spent by Sybase and Microsoft (two masters of the art) compared to the pitiful bumblings of Oracle in dealing with the PC press (witness the Infoworld 1989 coverage, or the SCO Magazine review of Oracle-versus-Informix, for two examples of extremely bad PR by Oracle resulting in warped press coverage)?

This is very easy.

Take the set of all tools (ignore VAR packages for now) that access Sybase, call it set TS. Take another set, of tools that access Oracle, and call it TO.

Take the intersection of TS and TO. Notice how huge it is. Conclude that most of the big, mainstream front end tools work with both DBMSs.

Take set TS minus set TO, call it TS', and look at the tools that only work with Sybase. Notice how small it is. Count, for yourself, which ones you care about for your purposes.

Take the set TO minus set TS, call it TO', and look at the tools that only work with Oracle. Notice that it's larger than TS'. Notice that you don't care how big TO' is. You only care whether any of the tools in TO' are tools that you care about.

If the press coverage seems to indicate that TS' is bigger, when the underlying data indicate the opposite, then the press coverage is inaccurage. Since I used to work in the PC trade press, this does not surprise me in the slightest.

So, David, I suppose you are willing at this point to agree that your original position was in fact in error?

 -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"