RE: Oracle 10

Niall

   I agree. I also insist you simply MUST find a copy of the book "The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison". Oracle emerged from the pack of relational database vendors not based on technical superiority, but because of marketing superiority. Gripe if you like, but that is what made them the #2 software company. And #1 is pretty good at marketing hype itself, and few have claimed Microsoft really had such superior technology. You are right that the Unbreakable campaign did bring more scrutiny to Oracle, but I haven't seen too many horror stories in the press about Oracle vulnerabilities being exploited by hackers and causing catastrophes. So I would say in the marketing way of counting, they probably feel the campaign was a big success. And again, being a technical person, I totally agree with your comments.

Dennis Williams
DBA, 60%OCP, 100% DBA
Lifetouch, Inc.
dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2003 4:57 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

> DENNIS WILLIAMS
> Sent: 05 May 2003 16:52
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> Subject: RE: Oracle 10
>
>
> I'm sure Oracle is trying to convince potential customers
> that they have better security than Microsoft. If you are a
> CIO who has been plagued with Microsoft vulnerabilities,
> these features may sound really good. For those of us who
> haven't been plagued with security vulnerabilities, these
> don't look so appealing.

I'd agree. Except that the 'cross-join vulnerability' that came out at the same time as the 'unbreakable' marketing campaign still scares me. Net result is you buy a product because an x million dollar marketing campaign says that its 'unbreakable'. As it turns out anyone with 'CREATE SESSION' privilege can see whatever data they like and anyone with 'CREATE SESSION' and 'CREATE VIEW' can modify whatever data they like. Only in the 'unbreakable' version obviously.

And I wonder how many folk still have 9.0.1 (and indeed have products that are only certified for that version).

> Hopefully we can turn off some of
> these features and provide a rational explanation to the
> management chain.

Automatic download of patches would be a good thing in my book, automatic application a disaster.

Niall

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