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

To: Mark Palmberg who wrote (8645)	10/12/1998 6:35:00 PM
From: Hardly B. Solipsist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19080

I read this as the idea that a database can be made "as easy to use as a spreadsheet", although I can't actually imagine what that might really mean, since people can't find the spreadsheet they want anymore, either. I think that Larry's expression of the differences between the MSFT and ORCL views of the future is more cogent, and while it is obviously biased, it seems a bit more balanced than Bill's presentation. The basic difference is, is it more valuable to let everyone have a database wherever they want it, or to let everyone have access to the data and manage it centrally. I think that it's disingenuous for MSFT to say that we can have a zillion little databases all over the place and worry about keeping things consistent after the fact. That trick has never worked, and I don't see why having some new icons on the desktop is going to make it work this time. On the other hand, if you can convince people with small databases to buy your less expensive software with the idea that it will scale up by the time they need it to be bigger, and that you will copy any feature of the higher-priced DBMS vendors by the time people need it, then you might be able to make a case. The fact that MSFT hasn't been able to do it so far doesn't seem to bother a lot of people, and for all I know MSFT hasn't really tried yet. They presumably do try to make NT reliable, and it's still not very good, and an RDBMS kernel is at least as complex as an O/S kernel. I am long ORCL and I sold my MSFT last summer, which wasn't that good a move according the the "smart money", but I still think that ORCL's strategy is more promising...

To: Mark Palmberg who wrote (8645)	10/12/1998 8:00:00 PM
From: MeDroogies	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19080

I am a spreadsheet wiz, yet I am dying for the day that a database is as easy to use as a database. If MS is right about the future of DBs (and I think they are over the long haul), the question becomes who will have the most user-friendly and enterprise-efficient tool? I am betting ORCL...they have the experience and the install base required. Ellison may not choose to tout that end of the market, however, since it isn't really the "true" market for DB's. It is hard for me to visualize people who are currently phobic or illiterate in the vast majority of programs to embrace an "easy to use" database on a wide scale, anytime soon.

To: Mark Palmberg who wrote (8645)	10/13/1998 2:02:00 PM
From: Adam Nash	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19080

Millions of databases? I don't get it. So is he basically saying that everyone's hard drive is going to become a database (after a fashion)? I'm having trouble visualizing the model, I guess. What information will be stored in these millions of databases? No, no replacing the hard drive. They are not worried about synchronizing all of these smaller databases because they are independent. Eventually, you use Storage+ and COM+ to write your business logic to connect databases. They are targeting the 2 million small businesses that up until now have not run their businesses on industrial strength databases because tthey are too hard to use, configure, and administrate. Personally, as anyone from the Mac side can tell you, for most small to mid-size business needs, usability features heavily outweigh others. That secret is the reason for FileMaker Pro's phenomenal success. I have seen non-techincal administrative assistants set up databases with network and web access with FileMaker 4.0. To me, it seems that MS is trying to seize the broad and growing middle of the market, since the low end is ceded to Access and FileMaker. Then they are saying that their tech will scale with you. What may be significant is that the new MS DNA model of development, with COM+ as its backbone will lead to much better reusability of business logic, storage logic, and flexible presentations (ie, ASP for HTML 3.2 clients, DHTML and VB for more advanced clients) all off the same business and storage logic base. True, you can write the Storage+ logic over Oracle, but that does not fit the Oracle 8i vision. I am in no way an MS Booster, but MS DNA is the right development model (the same one WebObjects has been pushing for years). And that is a bit scary. The problem with Oracle is they have never really done good usability work. Believe or not, MS in the past 5 years has aggregated a pretty impressive usability team throughout the organization. There are a lot of good ex-Apple folx over there. Still Long Oracle.