Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Thomas Mercer-Hursh who wrote (27894)	7/14/2000 1:44:04 AM
From: Mike Buckley	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 54805

The only reason I'm getting so involved in this discussion of the term, proprietary, is because it is at the core, heart and soul of Gorilla Gaming. Technically, proprietary should mean "I know how to do this and you don't and moreover I own it". I disagree. Lotus makes proprietary spreadsheet software. It's theirs and theirs alone. They use their own architecture to add 2 + 2 and place the answer (4) in the cell. Microsft also makes proprietary spreadsheet software that accomplishes the same task. Each company has their own proprietary code and architecture for making it all happen. --Mike Buckley

To: Thomas Mercer-Hursh who wrote (27894)	7/14/2000 8:06:16 AM
From: 100cfm	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Thomas Good point on proprietary wrt software. I guess we could call the hardware side such as Q's proprietary as exclusive proprietary and some software proprietary IP as Fuzzy, as in we both do the same thing but we do it much better and cheaper. Thus the advantage to the better IP but no Gorilla from Fuzzy IP. 100

To: Thomas Mercer-Hursh who wrote (27894)	7/15/2000 8:20:15 AM
From: erickerickson	Respond to of 54805

True story about technology being killed (somewhat OT) Thomas: I see you have been around the software block <G>. Personally I'm becoming an STL devotee. It stuns me that we can create what used to be complex applications in very short order. I'd add two things to your excellent post.. 1> Several years ago (3? 4?) I read a white paper about a novel database idea. Essentially, for you propeller heads out there, it removed most joins from a SQL database queries. You could put multiple values in a single column (e.g. many phone numbers in one column) without losing indexing capabilities etc. Anybody really interested in the details feel free to PM me and I'll bore you to death. This reduced the number of tables in a database, reduced complexity, increased flexibility and lots of other good things. I have no idea how it performed on really large databases or in "real world" situations. And I never will. I clicked over to their web site one day and the essential message was: "Our database idea and product has been purchased. We can't tell you who, how much, or anything else. We can't support any of our present customers with any fixes to the current code base. We can't even get at the code. The new owner, since we can't tell you who it is, isn't supporting it either. You're screwed". Well, the last sentence wasn't explicitly stated, but you get the idea. Talk about a stunner! I've been patiently waiting for one of the major vendors to tout a "whiz bang" new database architecture, but haven't heard anything. So, not only is there unintentional ignorance of existing software solutions, they can also be actively buried. I guess that's one way to counter the "new technology" threat. Buy it and bury it. I've got to think that this was actually perceived as a threat, given the above announcement. I'd give a lot for anybody who has more up-to-date information on it. 2> (peripherally related) Even within a fairly small development group (12 people), it takes a surprising amount of time to get everybody to use "the new stuff" (which may, in fact, be old stuff that somebody just found out about). This is after someone in that company has figured out that it's worthwhile. Then, you have to contend with those of us who try to apply whatever the new geeky thing is in totally inappropriate places.... Anyway, enough of that Erick