Re: Oracle & Gupta

Robert A. Rubino <rrubino_at_panix.com> wrote:
>Kim Medlin (klm_at_atlanta.dg.com) wrote:
>: Anybody know the inside scoop on whether Oracle will acquire/merge with
>: Gupta?

        It is definitely not happening.

>: Personally, I think it would be a great move for both companies.

        I don't see the fit, personally.

>: It doesn't seem that Oracle Forms is making that much of a dent in the
>: SQL Front End market place.

        Based on what? My experience contradicts this.

>From what I understand, Oracle pulled out, or was pushed out, from
>Gupta.

	Not even close.  Between Wall Street Journal articles and some
	friends still at Oracle (I used to work there), I gather that 
	Gupta stock was under-valued, so Oracle's treasury people saw an
	opportunity, and snarfed it.

	This exceeded a certain threshold that required reporting, which
	sparked merger/takeover rumors, which drove the price up.

	Oracle made a show of looking them over, dumped the stock at the
	higher price, and chuckled on the way to the bank.

>I think Gupta is REALLY optimistic with the next release of SQLBase. I
>know a lot of people and have been hearing a lot about how developers are
>at least curious about it, including myself.

	As am I.  SQLBase has a flaky reputation, and SQLWindows is much
	too programming-intensive (in the last commercial version I saw)
	to be worthwhile.

	I shouldn't have to sit down and explain to a database tool how
	to connect to databases.  It should have the good grace to look
	at the data dictionary and do intelligent things.  (Grrrr.)

>Rob. -rrubino_at_panix.com-

        No doubt the most recent stuff is better.

	I've had the luxury of using Oracle Forms 4 with CASE, and in
	those circumstances where it's a good fit, we've seen some
	amazingly high levels of productivity.  One good person who
	knows how to use the CASE Generators can push out very good,
	nearly complete screens.

	But I'm not here to get into the which-tool-is-better-in-a-
	vacuum flame war.

	Cheers.

	 -Tom

-- 
Thomas Cox         tcox_at_netcom.com
       PGP Key Available -- finger tcox_at_netcom.com.