Re: Database market is saturated fully, there is no more room!!

Mats Wichmann wrote:

> On Tue, 17 Feb 1998 22:55:05 +0000, Michael Segel
> <mikey_at_segel.NO.SPAM.KINGOFMYDOMAIN.SPAM.NO.com> wrote:
>
> >There is a thing called TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).
> [SNIP]

> With many TCO estimates for a system being in the hundreds of
> thousands of dollars, the effect of the acquisition cost of the O.S.
> ($50 to $2000, let's say -- even a "free" download costs something) is
> of minimal impact. Once you start looking at the availability of
> applications and the time to deploy them I'm not sure the equation
> favors Linux any longer.

Sigh.
Not every company is looking to acquire a room full of HP T500 or Sun 1000's.
And we are not talking about that.

What we are talking about is an Intel based niche. Typical Server configurations are around 6-7K depending on the number of SCSI cards, and
disks. (Also processor speed, SMP capable, etc ...)

Take a hard look at your options for Intel based OSs. Mach, BSD, Linux, Solaris, SCO/Unixware,
NT, .... Now take a look the price tag. NT = $748 plus additional software, SCO=1K for
runtime plus development tools. Solaris? Well you get my idea.

So, OS goes for 1K on average. (With NT you have to increase the number of clients, add a mail
server, ....) 1K on a 8K purchase (Hardware and OS) is 12.5% per unit.

Now when we are talking about distributed data within a large operation, you then have to
multiple sites. Those 1K savings do add up.

As to the software availability, it is a problem to some, but not to others.
It depends on your application. As a web server, Apache and Netscape run on Linux.
(Thats roughly covers 65% of the market.) There exists office suites, and other packages
like MATLIB (I think), Mathematica, ..... the list goes on. Granted, your needs may not
be met, but others are. What is Linux missing? A market leading RDBMS. One which is
compatible to the rest of the enterprise.

So Linux may be the best choice for some, not others. Over time, applications will be built.
But if you are writing custom apps, as long as the tools exist, then you will succeed.

I hope this helps in your understanding of the *linux phenomenon*.

Mikey Received on Wed Feb 18 1998 - 00:00:00 CST