Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!pasteur!eden!mao
From: mao@eden (Mike Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Ingres acquisition by ASK (plus a hopefully fun question)
Keywords: Ingres, ASK
Message-ID: <28051@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 21 Sep 90 22:01:08 GMT
References: <4435@avocado20.UUCP> <1124@beguine.UUCP>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: mao@postgres.Berkeley.EDU (Mike Olson)
Followup-To: comp.databases
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 48

In <1124@beguine.UUCP>, robinson@durham.med.unc.edu (Gerard A. Robinson)
writes

> How about some fun :-)  A while back, in this group, Dr. Stonebraker made
> the statement that database servers will be so plentiful that they'll be
> a-dime-a-dozen.  I disagree, I think that *GOOD* db servers (i.e. rock-solid
> reliability with fast response time) will be so rare, that THEY'LL decide
> the marketplace.  (Actually, most users will compromise on the speed, if
> that's what's needed to get the rock-solidity.)

i'll bite.  you should probably discount my opinion, since i work for
dr. stonebraker.

i believe that the evolution of servers in the industry toward ansi SQL
and generally identical functionality among vendors reinforces stonebraker's
claim.  most commercial database systems *are* rock-solid, in terms of
commits succeeding and rollbacks really rolling back.  further, although
most vendors are going to spit blood at this statement, they're all pretty
much the same in terms of speed, if you normalize for the hardware they
run on.  in what sense is any commercial database system more solid than
any other?

so why do people choose one vendor over another?  because the front-end
tools are better.

i think the acquisition of ingres corp. by ask is significant.  ask builds
hot front-end tools for the ingres backend.  ingres was having financial
problems selling its database system because database systems aren't what
attract users.  ask, which ignores the database system in favor of selling
tools that use it, made heaps of cash.

companies like metaphor, who develop tools that run on lots of different
rdbms platforms, are in much better shape to survive than are companies
who sell a single, specialized product.  this is pretty straight darwinism
-- diversity is a good thing, and if you eat lots of things low on the
food chain, you can survive the extinction of any one of them.  rdbms vendors
are low on the food chain.

as commercial database systems continue to become indistinguishable from
one another, the only thing that users will care about is the tools they
can get.  those tools will, in general, run on all commercial database
systems.  this is an exact parallel of the open systems revolution happening
among hardware and os vendors these days.

					mike olson
					postgres research group
					uc berkeley
					mao@postgres.berkeley.edu