An Open Letter To Oracle Corporation
Date: Fri, 30 Dec 1994 17:00:18 GMT
Message-ID: <rg5.122.000C01AC_at_drgpo.drg.nih.gov>
An Open Letter to Oracle Corp:
Dear Sirs:
Over the past several years Oracle has done an excellent job in bringing their company back to the top tier of database vendors in terms of database security, functionality and product support. My own organization has recently decided to use the entire suite of Oracle products in its effort to reengineer our internal software databases and applications.
However, in the area of Internet communications and database access Oracle has not taken a leadership role. The current Oracle World Wide Web (WWW) server contains only product information and advertising, and fee schedules for paid support. There are no technical bulletins, product patches, FAQs, email capability, or any other information useful to users or administrators.
In addition, there is a widely acknowledged and significant need to integrate internal (Oracle) databases with query capability from the Internet - principally the WWW. Although this can be accomplished by custom programming in C, PERL and G-SQL, the need for more sophisticated and easy-to-use solutions increases every day. There are currently no solutions forthcoming - or even announced - from Oracle to deal with these problems.
Contrasting this lack of vision from Oracle are the product strategies from some of Oracle's competitors such as Verity/Topic and Information Dimension/BasisPlus. IDI has announced a product called the BasisPlus Webserver. This tool will allow online adhoc query access from WWW servers to internal BasisPlus text databases without a great deal of application development or product support. This strategy is analogous to a 4GL solution, versus the current 3GL strategy for accessing Oracle databases from the WWW.
The IDI WWW page (http://www.idi.com/) is well thought out, has an outstanding interface, and will contain much useful technical information for product support. Verity/Topic is also pursuing a similar strategy relative to supporting internal databases via the Internet and providing online product support.
I call on Oracle Corporation to revaluate their corporate strategy and place a far greater priority on both supporting Oracle products via the Internet and providing professional development tools for accessing internal Oracle databases via the Internet/WWW. Security concerns should be part of their access model.
Thank you.
Bob Goldschmidt
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this letter are my own, and do not reflect the opinions of my employers.
Robert Goldschmidt, Ph.D.: Sr. Systems Analyst - Designer National Institutes of Health
Division of Research Grants
Email: RG5_at_DRGPO.DRG.NIH.GOV Received on Fri Dec 30 1994 - 18:00:18 CET