Re: Oracle and PICK

On Sat, 17 Apr 2004 19:04:15 -0500, Dawn M. Wolthuis wrote:

        [snip]

>
> One metric I have tried (and failed) to get from IBM is their gross
> dollars for their various database per software engineer they have
> assigned to maintain the database, or else their net return by database
> (DB2, IMS, Informix, UniData, UniVerse, Cloudscape, and whatever others
> they have). IBM is in a better position than most to see from a vendor
> standpoint where the PICK-based tools, the hierarchical database tool
> (yes, I'll admit that IMS and I had a thing going in the early 80's), and
> DB2, their relational model tool.
>
> --dawn

Dawn,

        I used to work for Unisys back in the dark ages when we were considered an alternative to IBM and I can assure you that the gross dollars per software engineer is a meaningless metric. The number of software engineers working on maintaining a particular DBMS as opposed to those working on enhancing the product is quite small. It would not surprise me to know that IBM has fewer than a dozen software engineers assigned to the maintenance of each of the products you mentioned. These products are all very well tested before they are released and as a result there are relatively few unknown bugs in them. In general there are known bugs, but they are scheduled to be fixed in future releases and no maintenance time is devoted to them.

        Jerry Received on Sun Apr 18 2004 - 03:26:20 CEST