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.

Technology Stocks : IFMX - Investment Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J Bertrand who wrote (8748)	1/14/1998 2:07:00 PM
From: Rob Cook	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14631

Jeff, you've seen my opinion on this before - MS IS the biggest long term worry for all the traditional players. In my book, the only 'negative' against microsoft if that you're limited, realistically, to intel NT platforms, and for super-ultra-mega-deluxe databases, this can be a limiting factor. With what intel is doing with chips and n-way boxes, what MS and intel, et al are doing with clustering, and what both have planned for the future (gray, bernstein, et al at MS) will utterly eliminate these issues in the next few years. I think most serious business apps will use this as the DB platform of choice in the near to mid term future. Add to this the upcoming re-pricing of MS SQL Server, and the biggies are really going to have a tough time justifying the cost of their products. MHO Cookie

To: J Bertrand who wrote (8748)	1/14/1998 4:15:00 PM
From: bigredfreak	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14631

Jeff, If MSFT can deliver on what they state in their recent press release for the SQL7 beta, this spells big trouble for IFMX, SYBS, and ORCL. The NT/Intel boxes are really beginning to scale and in several years NT scalability shouldn't be an issue (compared to Unix). If MSFT has actually written a SQL7 product that scales, has the features they describe, and can handle terabyte-sized databases, watch out. But this is MSFT, so you have to take what they say with a grain of salt. But MSFT management is smart enough to realize how important SQL7 is ... it' a key piece of their entire 'NT takes over the world' strategy. From what I've heard, they've spent big bucks and tons of MSFT options to recruit the best and brightest from the competition, specifically IFMX and IBM. So they may actually have the engineering talent to deliver what they describe. One thing to note is that I'm sure the ERP vendors would love to see SQL7 kick ass. Since ORCL is a big competitor of SAP, PSFT, and BAANF, these companies would like nothing more than to see ORCL lose market share to MSFT in the DBMS market ... ORCL's apps would therefore lose market share to SAP & co because many customers buy ORCL apps because of the ORCL DBMS. One thing to note is that the DOJ web browser related stuff has absolutely no impact on SQL7 & NT integration ... completely apples and oranges. A DBMS is not like a web browser where you use it just because there's an icon present on the desktop that you can double-click on ... there are tons of issues to consider when chosing a DBMS. Since SQL7 is tightly integrated with NT, that's good for NT shops. This design decision closed MSFT out of the Unix market ... it was a risky decision MSFT made many years ago when NT was still on the white board ... a decision which now appears have been a wise one. If MSFT doesn't deliver on scalability or delivers a low quality product (i.e. like what SYBS did in the past), this would be great news for IFMX, ORCL, & SYBS ... this could very easily happen. But I don't think it will ... MSFT has delayed the GA release of SQL7 by about a year and I think they're too smart to do something that stupid. The next 12 months will be interesting. I jumped out of IFMX about a 18 months ago when I saw scalability numbers for NT 4.0, began using NT 4.0, and saw what MSFT had planned for SQL7.