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

To: joe who wrote (9167)	12/15/1998 5:19:00 PM
From: Mark Palmberg	Respond to of 19080

Ellison knows software, and this makes him dangerous, IMO, since he has taken so many instances to mislead the public. Basically, the guy makes me nauseous. I don't think Bill's long record of misleading the public is in any danger of being broken by Ellison. I can see how Larry's constant efforts to revitalize his industry segment might result in some occasional half-truths, but sheesh, seems to me Larry's just playing the same game every other major software CEO plays. And I've seen Larry publicly state that he was wrong about a product or idea; I have yet to see Bill summon the guts for such a move. Nauseous? I've told you a million times, do not exaggerate! ;) Further... Zona Research, in a bulletin issued yesterday, questioned whether the information appliance model, which has worked extremely well for network storage products, will work in the Unix database market, where users tend to optimize the underlying operating system to work with their applications. Zona Research? Never heard of 'em. Sure users have tended to optimize the underlying OS to work with their applications, because their applications have been MSFT crap (my guess). Get those same users onto a system that works for -- rather than against -- them, and you remove the need to futz around with your own application- or system-level fix. Change is good. Zona Research is staring down the barrel of a new computing paradigm, and it's clear they don't quite have the vision to put together all the pieces. Sounds like some analysts I know.... How can you expect a huge corporation, even an information-age software giant, to be nimble enough to adequately respond to the imagination of a guy like Larry Ellison? Oracle is still in its infancy. Don't take Larry's word for it, ask your local geek. Mark

To: joe who wrote (9167)	12/15/1998 5:24:00 PM
From: treetopflier	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 19080

RE: Raw Iron <won't resonate with the hard-core Unix community> Boy do I ever agree with that statement. However, even a canned database config on a 'black box' would probably outperform the crappy configurations put together by non-DBAs who set up SQL Server configurations because they are cheap and easy. There isn't a lot of tuning talent or DBA expertise involved in these low end MSFT DB installs and that is what he is competing with. I don't see amazon.com using one of these 'database appliances'. ttf

To: joe who wrote (9167)	12/15/1998 5:24:00 PM
From: Hardly B. Solipsist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19080

You're obviously too unsubtle to my a MSFT spy. As to a database appliance being popular, I think that it's a matter of what the box is being used for. If it's just running something like 8i, the Unix community probably won't care (what is a Unix community, anyway), since they bought the box to do what it's doing. Oracle has said that their research indicates that most machines running Oracle databases are doing just that, and so having a box that came configured and ready to run might make sense. We'll see. As to the NC, if it's dead people should have told NCI, since they are still around. The idea never made a lot of sense to me, but if there start being enough applications that run entirely on servers, it could work. However, with PC's for sale at $300 (I saw a story about this in the Murky News today but I don't know how real this is), it's looking harder to make money on a box that competes with a stripped-down PC and a browser installed. The "failure" of the NC was actually a failed attempt by Oracle to promote the centralized server model that they are pushing now. I think that the problem was that the company didn't have the right products to make this work, since the NC is like pushing on a string. 8i is real, though, so it will succeed or fail depending on whether this model of computing will work. I'm betting on winning...