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Technology Stocks : OBJECT DESIGN Inc.: Bargain of the year!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (2620)	12/14/1998 9:05:00 AM
From: Bob Trocchi	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3194

Damien, Gustave: I am curious about the following. If memory serves me correct, years ago the data base market had a number of competitors and no real standards. When SQL came out, as a standard, I believe the interest and sales of DB systems took off. From that point on, company execution took over and Oracle became dominant and Sybase and a couple of others did very well bringing up the rear as I recall. Those who did not execute fell by the wayside. I really would like to hear from you folks whether you think that the recent XML definition as a standard will stimulate the overall interest in Object DB's. Given that ODIS is a leader in the Object DB space, if my memory is correct about SQL and if history is any guide, then OODBMS may well begin to really take off and bring Q over Q earnings of ODIS similar to those that happened during the rapid growth period of the RDBMS market. That assumes of course that ODIS can execute. I am betting that they can. I would love to hear your or anyone else's comments about the impact of standards, either real or defacto on this market segment. Bob T.

To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (2620)	12/14/1998 6:18:00 PM
From: hasbeen101	Respond to of 3194

I think it's fair to acknowledge that the whole IT environment has changed from the days when ORCL was a start-up. In the late 1970s, the dbms market was not a multibillion-dollar pie... So, let's say that ORCL was born in a market poised to grow at 100% y/y. Gustave, I don't buy that argument. When Oracle was starting out, the DBMS market was relatively small. Oracle had to grab a huge share of the growth in the market to achieve 100%. Oracle now does about $6 billion a year in revenues (about 100 times ODIS' revenues). If they are increasing that at 27%, they are gaining about $1.5 billion a year in new revenues. All ODIS has to do to double its revenues in the next 12 months is to steal 4% of the growth in Oracle's revenues over that period. If ODIS remains content with the current growth rates while it is this small, I would say the market is correct in pricing the company like a good supermarket chain, instead of like a paradigm-changing software company. So long as revenue growth remains well below 100% a year, ODIS will simply be a niche player.