Re: database market share 2003

wizofoz2k_at_yahoo.com.au (Noons) wrote in message news:<73e20c6c.0406031558.18787583_at_posting.google.com>...
> Darin McBride <dmcbride_at_naboo.to.org.no.spam.for.me> wrote in message news:<5JGvc.659814$Ig.278119_at_pd7tw2no>...
> > Honesty would require removing only the portion of the AS/400
> > market which is not actually using DB2, whatever that may be.
>
> Thank you for admitting IBM is NOT being honest.
> WTF doesn't IBM do it?
>
> > You must
> > concede, however, that doing that is not easy.
>
> Yes it is.

How can it be easy without quantification?

>
> > honest method of reporting, but it is not easy to do. A customer may
> > buy an AS/400 not intending to use DB2, and then do so anyway (they are
> > licensed to do it afterall).
>
> No. Cite one.
>
> > Or a customer may purchase Oracle for HP
> > and then the project is cancelled - discounting this from Oracle's
> > numbers is not going to be any easier.
>
> Cite one.

Did you notice a sig I posted a couple of days ago regarding Sony? I know of 2 there (although I can't recall if it was HP or another platform). Such things can be expected, and can be difficult to quantify. And I know personally of a couple of other cases local to me where a company was buying stuff and then got aquired, mooting the project. And even some government projects that spent the capital budget on hardware and licenses only to have the contractor never deliver the app. And I'm quite sure this is far too common.

>
> > It would mean going to each
> > vendor's customers, and verifying that each one is using what they paid
> > for. Definitely honest, but is it going to produce significantly
> > different numbers that would justify the expense?
>
> Yes. Ask IBM to provide the numbers: they have
> them.

I have a bit of trouble with this. I haven't had any exposure to AS400, but I've seen other vendors older machines where the vendors have no idea what is being used unless there is a support call, and with mature installations there may not be many of those. What would make IBM any different (at least since the 1956 consent agreement :-)?  And I've seen O installations that have lapsed support, O doesn't know about them until someone like me comes in and says "ummmm..." I'm sure there is plenty that IBM is not telling, but I'm not so sure we can divine exactly what that is.

>
> >
> > I doubt it.
>
> That is why the Gartner "numbers" are widely derided:
> the lightness with which they make incorrect assumptions
> about "markets" and the lightness with which they'll accept
> ANY claims from ANY maker, proportional to the cachet that
> accompanies such claims.

Agreed.

jg

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