Re: database market share 2003

"Serge Rielau" <srielau_at_ca.eye-be-em.com> schreef in bericht news:ca9ru8$hep$1_at_hanover.torolab.ibm.com...
> Noons wrote:
> > Serge Rielau allegedly said,on my timestamp of 10/06/2004 1:02 AM:
> >
> >> I disagree. Everyone equates Oracle (no qualifier) with the Relational
> >> database, yet the same name is used for Apps, and of course the mobile
> >> database offering.
> >
> >
> > and quite wrongly, IMHO. Been one of my old grudges with Oracle,
> > as a matter of fact. It's as stupid as it gets and only confuses
people.
> > Let's not go into what it does to the heads of competition's marketeers.
> > (the expression "major meltdown" springs to mind...)
> >
> > The names were originally Oracle Financials for the apps and Oracle
RDBMS
> > for the database. Which would equate to IBM "this" or IBM "that", given
> > that Oracle is the name of the company. NOT the name of the product.
> > Somewhere in the last 12 years it all became mixed up, with dire
> > consequences for intelligible conversation.
> The rub, I think, is that brands are in companies hands. It has
> flipsides, too. E.g. IBM is a "hardware company" DB2 is a "mainframe
> product". As much as using DB2 (or Oracle) may help on one side, it
> hurts on another.
> It is a rather amusing twist that "UDB" is perceived as being DB2 for
> LUW. It's a sign of popularity, IMHO. DB2 UDB for LUW has stepped out of
> DB2 for z/OS shadow.

It's not that, I think. It's more because us MF-dinosaurs are tired of having each and every product renamed all the time; OS/VS, MVS, MVS/XA, MVS/ESA, OS/390, z/OS and on top of that DB2 on ..., UDB for ..., what's next? Just give us a name and stick to it. And the reason for which IBM is still perceived as a "hardware company" is just the opposite: here they hang on to "International Business Machines", which doesn't sound like anything but hardware to me... Maybe they should consider a gradual name-change for the company, something like "Universal Business Machines" next year, "Universal Data Machines" the year after, and finally "Universal/Ultimate Data Business"... :-) After that, you 'truely' can say UDB is UDB is UDB, just like "the competitor" ;-)

> >
> >> The lastest crime is "for Muliplatforms" which sounds like Milla
> >> Jovovich in the "5. Element" and is largely ignored.
> > Et tu, Brutus? ;)
> I tried. Gave up when I figured I'm standing alone and noone nows what
> I'm talking about. Back to LUW, it's prettier anyway: DB2 for "love" :-)
>
> >> We had similar problems with "SQL Procedural Langage" (SQL PL) which
> >> isn't a language at all, really.. It's just SQL.
> >
> >
> > Yeah, that sounded always like a major twist of PL/SQL... :)
> > I never understood why not just call it what it is: ANSI SQL.
> > After all, IBM always called Cobol as ANSI Cobol...
> We tried exactly that. But how do tell a customer that:
> IBM Rep (eager): "DB2 UDB V7.1 for LUW now supports procedures written
> in SQL"
> Customer(oblivious): "You mean: "EXEC SQL SELECT c1 INTO var FROM T;"?
> What's new about that?"
> IBM Rep (excited): "No! No C or Java, just SQL!"
> Customer: "But how to I do procedural logic ???"
> "In SQL!"
> "???*blink*"
> Reason: SQL is "perceived" to deal with queries only.
> So we settled for SQL "Procedural Language" statements to classify IF,
> WHILE etc. and SQL PL is the obvious acronym to use.
>
> >> Things need short memorisable names, the market demands it, and if
> >> there is none chaos prevails.
> >> It's an IBM blindspot.
> >
> >
> > Not just IBM...
> Possibly, I never worked for another company.
>
> --
> Serge Rielau
> DB2 SQL Compiler Development
> IBM Toronto Lab
Received on Thu Jun 10 2004 - 17:57:55 CDT