Re: Great Article on Oracle

Data Goob wrote: > http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2005/tc20050923_0725_tc024.htm An accurate assessment (from one that was there). I think from Larry's standpoint he has won the war. That it is now time to be magnanimous. There is little question that with the purchase of Siebel IBM's strategy has fallen apart. Thus the change within Oracle is what I would have expected. -- Daniel A. Morgan http://www.psoug.org damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond)

DA Morgan wrote: > Data Goob wrote: > >> http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2005/tc20050923_0725_tc024.htm >> > > > An accurate assessment (from one that was there). > > I think from Larry's standpoint he has won the war. That it is now time > to be magnanimous. There is little question that with the purchase of > Siebel IBM's strategy has fallen apart. Thus the change within Oracle > is what I would have expected. *lol* If that were the case then the monopoly watchdogs would have made a huge mistake. The whole idea of letting Oracle and Peoplesoft (and now Siebel) go together unchecked is that the market is a lot bigger than those few players. These few players, even including SAP still make up only a small portion of the market. Note that Oracle has also realized that their apps have to play nice with Websphere and even DB2 w.r.t Siebel and Peoplesoft. So there is money to be made for IBM. I don't think that IBM as a whole has to be afraid, I don't even think that these events pose any more a threat to DB2 than it does pose an opportunity. Purchases of this magnitude don't come as surprises. The strategists in the big companies anticipate these moves. If IBM would have perceived that their strategie falls appart they could have executed on the "white knight" proposal for Peoplesoft, they could merge with SAP or have bought Siebel. They no doubt consciously decided not to, and anticipated that Oracle won't just stop. IMHO the IT market will stay interesting for a long time to come. Just my 2 cents Serge -- Serge Rielau DB2 SQL Compiler Development IBM Toronto Lab

Serge Rielau wrote: >> An accurate assessment (from one that was there). >> >> I think from Larry's standpoint he has won the war. That it is now time >> to be magnanimous. There is little question that with the purchase of >> Siebel IBM's strategy has fallen apart. Thus the change within Oracle >> is what I would have expected. > > *lol* If that were the case then the monopoly watchdogs would have made > a huge mistake. Not my assessment: The assessment of some inside of IBM's marketing team. But did the regulators make a mistake? I don't know. Think they made a mistake with Microsoft and Windows? -- Daniel A. Morgan http://www.psoug.org damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond)

DA Morgan wrote: > Data Goob wrote: >> http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2005/tc20050923_0725_tc024.htm >> > > An accurate assessment (from one that was there). > > I think from Larry's standpoint he has won the war. That it is now time > to be magnanimous. There is little question that with the purchase of > Siebel IBM's strategy has fallen apart. Thus the change within Oracle > is what I would have expected. The bigger they are the harder they fall. While Larry et al like to think big on the top end, there is an interesting dynamic on the SMB ( not Samba :-) space, where a lot of open source activity is changing the landscape--and this is happening rapidly. For example, Zimbra just came out with what appears to be the first serious attempt to come out with a FREE Exchange-Server-Replacement, and this is a very difficult market to tear into. Bynari and others have attempted this as commercial products, with a lot of "learning" on the customers' dime. A lot of the progression of the commercial space has come at the expense of the customer allowing the vendor to learn. But, Zimbra is ZERO cost, just like the Voip opportunity with Asterisk, and CRM like SugarCRM. So, while the blowing of horns is loud at the top, it will be a good idea to see what's happening outside the blowhard space. Not to mention that the whole industry is in a rapid tailspin on telecommunications business models. For example, Skype is changing the communications model to allow Voip on a PDA, which really negates the need for a cellphone. Now all of a sudden you start to rethink things. It really boils down to Larry keeping his customers and developers LOCKED IN, as well as IBM for that matter, by showing the value-add to the lock-in. But if one considers the open-systems stack, there is a lot of opportunity to even suggest Oracle has to change a lot or they could end up the next dodo bird. MySQL is gaining a lot of ground, and DB2/Informix peoples should take note of that with the latest 5.0 release, not to mention MySQL's NDB tables, which allow for clustering the same way as Informix XPS or DB2 EEE, for a fraction of the cost. Even Postgres is on the table, with partioning coming 'round the corner.

DA Morgan wrote: > Not my assessment: The assessment of some inside of IBM's marketing > team. But did the regulators make a mistake? I don't know. Think they > made a mistake with Microsoft and Windows? Ah yes, mysterious unnamed sources which can't be validated. Can be anyone from chief marketing dude to co-op student's wife's sister in law. BTW, where did I miss you morphing into the guy who believes anything IBM marketing says ? ;-) Cheers Serge -- Serge Rielau DB2 SQL Compiler Development IBM Toronto Lab

Serge Rielau wrote: > DA Morgan wrote: > >> Not my assessment: The assessment of some inside of IBM's marketing >> team. But did the regulators make a mistake? I don't know. Think they >> made a mistake with Microsoft and Windows? > > Ah yes, mysterious unnamed sources which can't be validated. > Can be anyone from chief marketing dude to co-op student's wife's sister > in law. > BTW, where did I miss you morphing into the guy who believes anything > IBM marketing says ? ;-) > > Cheers > Serge To quote Samuel Johnson "Sir, I have found you an explanation, but I am not obliged to find you an understanding." -- Daniel A. Morgan http://www.psoug.org damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond)