Re: Symantec Cafe Pro (JAVA) Support for Informix

A number of days ago, in article <32c89ee2.1678003@netnews2.worldnet.att.net>, I wrote: >>[B]both Symantec and Informix are making a major blunder if they >>don't partner to interface each other's products. Symantec will be >>unable to sell Visual Cafe Pro to Informix users, and Symantec Java >>users will purchase other databases besides Informix. Evidently disagreeing, on 2 Jan 1997 20:41:50 GMT, jcz@mgma.com (Jan C. Zawadzki) replied: >Do you *really* think that a $300 tool is going to affect a $40K database >buying decision? Sybase thought so, and look where it got them! I think this comment misses the mark: (1) Even if the price discrepancy were as large as Jan makes it out to be, price is not the crucial issue -- it's compatibility. An application development environment -- even a free one -- is useless if it can't easily access an enterprise's chosen database server. (2) In point of fact, the comparison is not $300 over against $40K. The company that buys a $40K database server doesn't just buy one $300 application development environment. It buys many of these, one license for each developer, along with training and consulting. And for the enterprise version of an application development environment, the price is usually much higher than $300. (3) I don't think Sybase bought Powersoft to lock in database sales, but rather because it felt that "money was being left on the table." That certainly has been Oracle's thinking with respect to its consulting, 4GL, applications, and CASE business. Some of these ventures obviously will turn out better than others. Sybase made some very poor purchases, but Powersoft wasn't one of them. The real problem for a company that is diversifying is to maintain its core competency. Both Sybase and Novell dropped the ball on that, especially Sybase. -- Richard (RASchulman@worldnet.att.net) // For email reply, be sure that the anti-mass-mailer // asterisks have been removed from the "To" field.