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From: mao@eden (Mike Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Britton Lee's SQL Server: Anyone using it?
Message-ID: <26275@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 17 Jul 90 18:22:02 GMT
References: <1990Jul15.052332.18910@comspec.uucp>
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Reply-To: mao@postgres.Berkeley.EDU (Mike Olson)
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Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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In <1990Jul15.052332.18910@comspec.uucp>, daveb@comspec.uucp (dave berman)
writes:

> Is anyone actually using one of Britton Lee's SQL Servers?
> 
> They call it SHARE BASE, and it is handled in Canada by Compushare Database
> Systems Inc, (President David J Killins). It was designed, in part, by Dr Bob
> Taylor, who is now the Executive Vice President of R&D for Britton Lee.

i used to work for the company, and can answer some of your questions.  my
past association necessarily colors the review, but i believe that my technical
assessments here are pretty much on target.

first, a little history:  britton lee changed its name to sharebase a couple
of years ago, and was recently acquired, lock, stock, and barrel, by teradata
corporation of los angeles (or thereabouts).  teradata is the other major
player in the database machine market.  sharebase is now "a division of
teradata corp.", but has pretty much the same middle management and technical
staff as it did before the merger.

bob taylor is no longer with the company.  he left some time ago, and is now
at hewlitt packard.

i don't want to publish the names of sharebase customers that i know about,
but i can tell you that organizations both inside and outside the government
with some pretty serious database problems have been using their machines
and software for years.  you may be able to convince your salesperson to give
you a list of references before you buy.  of course, the list you get will
be satisfied customers, so you won't get an unbiased view, but that may put
you into touch with others.

i was a techie at sharebase.  for what it's worth, i believe that the company
has an outstanding product.  their servers are fast.  they were the first
company (and i believe are still the *only* company) to have their sql
implementation certified by ansi as compliant with the sql '89 standard.
there's a wide range of software that uses the server available; user code
can run on VMS, CMS, scads of unix boxes, and pc's, among others.

the short version is that i think sharebase is a good answer.  you can
contact me directly if you have specific questions or comments, or, of
course, you can post.  alternatively, mike tossy, who occasionally posts
here, is a good source.  although he works for the company, he usually
tells the truth about technical issues.

final disclaimer:  i now work at uc berkeley on the postgres database
project, and am no longer associated with sharebase.  any misrepresentations
in this article are unintentional, and are certainly not the fault of
teradata corp.
					mike olson
					postgres research group
					uc berkeley
					mao@postgres.berkeley.edu