Oracle Marketing (was: Support for Front Ends)

In article <des.110_at_helix.nih.gov> des_at_helix.nih.gov (David E. Scheim) writes:
>>>I'm afraid it's very difficult to give a quantitative assessment on the
>>>number of useful tools available for each server.
 

>>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.)
 

>If the lists of tools you refer to for Oracle and Sybase/MS SQL Server are
>those provided by the vendors, including vaporware and verticle market
>permutations of products, then your making my point.

I agree with you, that the lists are full of VARs and vapor. But since you know in advance which tools you care about (i.e. Objectview), you can do this: mark the interesting tools (and count 'em if you like), get the phone numbers, since these lists _have_ the phone numbers, and phone up the tool vendors. (Most of the big ones have toll-free numbers.)

Tool vendors may hem and haw, but if you ask 'em straight out "is it shipping today", they'll give you a straight answer.

>I believe that to make
>a useful comparison takes more thorough checking, which I admit, I have not
>done.

Right. I was getting paid to do that, so I did, but most people won't. To return to your original claim, and the entire reason for this thread: you claimed that SQL Server had 'more front ends', and I have demonstrated that in fact Oracle has 'more front ends'.

>I base my impression on the fact that some of the most significant
>tools, such as Matesys Objectview, were initially released supporting MS SQL
>server but not Oracle.

This all relates to Microsoft's marketing clout and its skill in pushing around smaller companies. Note also that MS Access and Foxpro for Windows are going to follow this pattern of supporting SQL Server first. (Since neither tool allows you to issue a SQL BEGIN...COMMIT to a server, I won't be using them.)

>I do agree, however, that at this stage of the game the main tools support
>both platforms, and it's somewhat of a moot issue.

And us consumers win big.

>>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)?
 

>The noteworthy Infoworld review (1989? 1990?) of Oracle SQL server had a
>caustic edge to its technically poor findings not because of a lack of
>marketing zeal on the part of Oracle.

I used to work at InfoWorld's review lab, briefly in 1988.

_My_ contacts tell me that Microsoft's people came in and did the install, while Oracle did not, and that Microsoft helped InfoWorld write the test specifications used on *both* products.

>Infoworld complained of the excessive
>advice of Oracle contacts to keep tinkering with its product setup to obtain
>maximal performance.

Yes, badgering the press with phone calls *is* bad PR. I didn't say Oracle wasn't zealous, I said they were incompetent at public relations with the desktop press. This is a case in point.

>Infoworld was more interested in production-style
>testing in which each product is installed and run as specified in product
>documentation. I believe that Oracle's persistence in sales and public
>relations has always exceeded the technical quality of its products.

My experience is exactly the opposite. Oracle's products have, as of 1990, been of equal or greater quality to other products in their class, but the "zealous incompetence" of past Oracle marketing has given many people, including you, this bad impression.

(Also, Oracle has the worst installation procedure of any major RDBMS, and that bad first impression is *hard* to overcome.)

In my own interviews of Oracle and non-Oracle customers, I've found that for every person who rejected Oracle for technical reasons, there were about seven others who rejected Oracle because they didn't like the way Oracle treated them.

That 7-to-1 ratio has to disprove the myth of bad product/good marketing. I would claim it proves the opposite: good products, lousy treatment of customers.

In fairness to Oracle, their recent CDE tools launch was the most coherent thing I've seen a major tools company put out, and gives me hope that Oracle Marketing (recently re-organized) will pull itself up by the bootstraps, and stop alienating customers.

The CDE tools themselves, while some are vapor, look excellent. The non-vapor tools *are* excellent.

>This
>is not to say that Microsoft and Sybase may not fall into the same trap now
>that their server product is becoming increasingly popular, nor that Oracle
>may not reform somewhat from the worst excesses of the past decade.

I'm already hearing that Sybase, to quote one source, "is becoming more like Oracle" -- by which my informant meant "becoming slimy".

Meanwhile, I hear that Oracle has brought in outside management consultants to help them de-slime their sales process.

-- 
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"