I agree about there being three markets, although any such division is naturally very fuzzy about where the breaks really are.
I agree about the difficult to administer part. Check out progress.com for a sobering comparison of TOC, noting also that MS SQL Server isn't even compared in the enterprise category. I might suggest, by the by, that enterprise, workgroup, and personal are good labels for the three divisions.
And I agree about the perception of Oracle being expensive and this being the motivation for the shift in price strategies, particularly for the smaller customer who corresponds to the naive tourist and doesn't know to bargain. As the above link illustrates, it isn't just the purchase cost either.
The question I would have is what are the factors which got Oracle to where they are and what will or will not keep them there. To be sure, some of getting here and staying here is top end performance, particularly for the enterprise or wannabe workgroup user. Row locks, parallel query resolution, tunable storage areas, and SQL extensions have all contributed to this performance and the latter help to provide lock-in.
But, I think this is hardly the case of a classic gorilla in which a clearcut technology advantage has been exploited to create a dominant market position. The have certainly been helped by Ingres, Informix, and Sybase all managing to shoot themselves in the foot rather seriously at various times while Oracle didn't do any worse than a bad stumble. Sometimes life is like a survival course and just making it to the end in one piece is enough to win.
For that matter, Progress, while they have never made it above fourth place, has a great database for low cost of ownership, easy maintenance, affordable pricing, and high performance with a light footprint (delivering performance equal to Oracle on about half the iron until one ran into the ceiling). And the latest couple of versions are pushing the envelope higher and higher, now putting out some transaction rates that put them in Oracle territory. Unfortunately for PRGS shareholders, they have never managed to make any marketing capital out of any of the company's accomplishments and the SQL gateway has been substandard. This latter may be finally fixed in 9.1 due out this quarter, but talk about missing the wave!
What I am suggesting is that, from the technology perspective, Oracle could well be vulnerable even at the top end, should either one of their competitors get their act together the demands of the market shift, e.g., to make more emphasis of OO features. But, I still wouldn't look for Oracle's dominant position to really be challenged very quickly exactly because of the mindshare dominance. Yes, some of this is investment in Oracle trained administrators and such, i.e., switching costs, but most of it is just the dominant position.
To me, this sounds more like a King. |
