Re: Oracle Power Objects

From: Dennis Moore <dbmoore_at_netcom.com>
Date: Sat, 4 Mar 1995 06:58:36 GMT
Message-ID: <dbmooreD4wM1o.31J_at_netcom.com>


In article <1995Mar3.040654.8532_at_lafn.org> aj583_at_lafn.org (Stephen Newhouse) writes:
>In a previous article, melba_at_eucmvx.sim.ucm.es () says:
>>In article <3ie4v6$cl5_at_newsbf02.news.aol.com>, dwb9574278_at_aol.com (DWB9574278) writes:
>>> Does anyone have any information on this product? What
>>> advantage/disadvantage does it have over Oracle*Forms? What are its
>>> limitations?
>I'm no expert here, being an end-user. And I'm not sure just how
>complicated an answer you are requesting. But, here's a simple
>explanation. Power objects is planned as a
>competitor to Powerbuilder, SQL Windows, Access, Foxpro, Paradox, etc. It
>is a GUI devleopment environment for Windows,
>not intended as a portable development tool. Forms is a higher-level
>development tool that is portable across platforms, PC, mini, mainframe.
>From what I hear,
>Oracle intends to aggressively market power objects to get some market
>share from the other GUI environments. They currently claim that won't
>be the case with Forms/Reports (believe what you want).

I am the marketing director for Oracle CDE. Let me clear this up a bit.

There are a number of "market segments" across which a single tool cannot do the job for everyone. The personal market is dominated by tools like Access, Excel, and dBASE/Paradox-type tools -- use is by one to three users doing generally fairly simple transactions against very small data sources. The workgroup market is dominated by tools like Visual Basic -- use is by three to a few dozen users doing some more complex, concurrent transactions against relatively small data sources. The department market is dominated by Oracle Forms (according to IDC, BY FAR the leading tool in this market -- by about a multiple of three over its closest competitors) -- use is by a few dozen to a thousand users doing complex transactions against large data sources. The highest end of the scale is the enterprise, dominated by COBOL -- use is by a thousand to tens of thousands of users doing simple but highly concurrent transactions against very large data sources.

PowerObjects is positioned in the workgroup market, and CDE2 (including Oracle Forms) is positioned in the department/enterprise market. While there will be some overlap, clearly if you intend to build an application for a workgroup Oracle PowerObjects and Oracle WorkGroup server are a great choice. If you are building applications for multiple workgroups, for a department, or for an entire enterprise, Oracle CDE2 and Oracle7 are a great choice.

The confusion in their positioning is a result of products like PowerBuilder, which attempts to span the workgroup and department markets. Unfortuantely, PowerBuilder is really too complex for the workgroup and too weak for the department.

Both PowerObjects and CDE2 (Forms included) will occasionally compete with PowerBuilder and SQL Windows, but will not compete with each other.

I hope that helps.

Good luck!

-- 
-- Dennis Moore, Oracle Corp.
dbmoore_at_oracle.com
dbmoore_at_netcom.com
Received on Sat Mar 04 1995 - 07:58:36 CET

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