Re: Pilgrim's progress at the medicine show

On Tue, 4 Apr 1995, paul sellars wrote: > In article <3lqikj$2ir@tequesta.gate.net> > tschaefe@gate.net "Tim Schaefer" writes: ... > I agree with you. As PC products become more powerful and sophisticated > they will, increasingly, eat into Informix's low-end market share for tools I also agree, but I dont think its just the low-end part of the market that Big Bill is going after. Keep in mind that NT and SQL Server cost about US$695 and US$995 on a 486... and *exactly* the same on a quad processor 275Mhz Alpha. Id guess that a pretty hefty precentage of the Informix installed base (>70%?) runs on boxes less powerful than that Alpha. Ive been playing with NT in the last few weeks and it *is* pretty impressive. I havent seen SQL Server (yet), but it sounds like the current version is at least adequate, and the next versions are starting to sound very much like Informix and company. > and databases. This will squeeze Informix, Oracle, Sybase etc. into a > shrinking high-end market. Hence the attempts by the above to move down to > the PC. Unfortunately Informix does not seem to understand the pricing > structures needed to compete in this market. It doesnt seem like Oracle or Sybase quite want to believe it either. > compete effectively. It is Microsoft's stated intention to expand > up-market into corporate software and they have been pretty effective > in the past at wiping out the competition. Yup. If nothing else, they are persistant, and they know how to market things. When you look at "Back Office", each part is reasonably impressive. When you look at the whole thing (NT Server, SQL Server and SMS in particular) its much more compelling. Joe Matuscak Rohrer Corporation 717 Seville Road Wadsworth, Ohio 44281 (216)335-1541 Matuscak@Rohrer.com