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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jean M. Gauthier who wrote (3603)	7/9/1999 5:30:00 PM
From: DownSouth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

With all due respect, Jean M. Gauthier, you opinion of ORCL seems that of an investor rather than any experience with them in the market place. Is this inference accurate on my part? The reason I ask is that I have frequent opportunity to see their application and RDBMS products in the marketplace and based on my experience, your conclusions are inaccurate. I think they are surfing on their "internet" halo effect, but I think, as much as I dislike IBM, that UDB(DB2) will become the new standard, for the fortune 500 companies on the net. The ONLY DB2 based web implementations that I know of are in a few places in a few F500 companies. But those same f500 companies and a whole bunch of SP500 companies are implementing Oracle-based web implementations for B2B and B2C commerce. IMO, DB2 doesn't stand a chance. Regarding ORCL setting standards, for enterprise RDBMS they ARE the standard and they are setting new ones vis a vis web app implementation platforms. Your personal opinion about Ellison being a moron really doesn't deserve a response, as it is obviously an emotional retort from you. We may disagree with his style, but he is a very smart person and he is very focused. RE; barriers to entry. There is a great deal of difference between Oracle's RDBMS and MS SQL server. They both use SQL, but their security, reliability, transaction processing techniques and web implementation tools are vastly different. ORCL is far, far ahead of MSFT in all of those regards, and setting standards. And it sure as heck is not "relatively easy for a data architect to convert & move over". Sure, a database can be ported, but that's just 10% of the work--especially for web implementations. So, I ask again, does your opinion come from experience in the marketplace? Disclosure: No ORCL in my portfolio; lots of MSFT in there; not an RDBMS vendor.

To: Jean M. Gauthier who wrote (3603)	7/9/1999 10:37:00 PM
From: Mike Buckley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Jean, I don't want to get in a huge debate with you about Oracle, not because I might be right and you might be wrong. It's because I probably know a lot less about Oracle than you do and wouldn't win the debate if we asked readers to vote. :) As I reflect on some stuff, I don't have empirical evidence to show that Oracle is the gorilla of the database market. Everything I've read, including stuff written by Geoff Moore, says they are so I've taken it for granted that they are. If indeed they are, the period in which Larry Ellison spent more time focusing "against" Microsoft instead of focusing "on" his own business will likely prove the point the authors make -- that the management team of a gorilla can screw up for a few years without causing the company to fundamentally meltdown the way non-gorillas might. My thinking that there is little downside risk to Oracle is that they are coming off a period of screwing up. Ellison gives me the impression that he's back on track, notwithstanding his infatuation with boats. :) It'll be fun to see where they are a few years from now. --Mike Buckley