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Technology Stocks : Oracle Corporation (ORCL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James Luk who wrote (5270)	1/30/1998 3:38:00 PM
From: Michael Olin	Respond to of 19080

A few years is an eternity in the database business. I also think that even if they give SQL Server away, Microsoft will still have to work very hard to eat away at Oracle's market share at anything but the very low end. For departmental/workgroup applications, which is about where you can run SQL Server/NT without major pain currently, Oracle's database server costs less than $1,500. You get the same functionality of the Oracle server that runs on larger platforms and all of the interoperability and scalability that goes with it. If you need to move your database up to (or exchange data with another Oracle database on) a Unix server, a mainframe, it's all there. If you want to take your database home on your laptop for the weekend (now that you have a multi-GB HD in your laptop) you can do that with Oracle also. From day one, Oracle has used portability and scalability as major selling points for their database. I've run Oracle on IBM mainframes, more bizarre minicomputers than you can imagine, PCs running DOS, OS/2, Windows 3.x, 95 and NT, 68K and Power Macs. And then there's that N-Cube monster that Larry bought into. I have moved a client's Oracle database from a 12Mhz PC/AT to an AT&T 3B2 to a Sequent SMP Unix box as their business grew. Microsoft is offering a single platform and running around like crazy to get it to be everything for everybody. Little NT boxes, big NT boxes, clusters of NT boxes and the clock radio in your bedroom running Windows too. Sure, they can sell ice to the Inuit, but IT managers have mission critical databases to keep up and running. Oracle has a proven track record. I wouldn't bet my client's business on an unproven product from Redmond even though it has slick advertising and it's being given away. JMHO -Michael

To: James Luk who wrote (5270)	1/30/1998 3:45:00 PM
From: Punko	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19080

MSFT may not be the best with their initial offerings, but one thing they have proven consistently is that they eventually (and often quickly) catch up. SQL 7 is not Object Relational or extensible, but it is row-level locked, which is what the enterprise apps need. In fact, I think they break some ground with their optimistic locking strategy. They first lock at the table, then de-escalate progressively as they detect more contention to the page, then if they need to, down to row level - very nice, since if you don't need the overhead of a row level lock, why use it? SQL 7 does not have all the bells and whistles, but it can run the big apps for mid-market companies (50-500MM) - which IMO is the fastest growing segment of the ERP market - and do so cost effectively. This will give MSFt plenty of penetration and cost the big 3 plenty of sales in this growing market segment. As time goes on, Microsoft, with its big cash reserve and os cash cow, can continue to pour big bucks into r&d and attractive pricing to further shrink the big 3's lead. This is how they go after and usually succeed in taking over markets. I wouldn't bet against them.