Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!odi!dlw
From: dlw@odi.com (Dan Weinreb)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Market share for DOS database products
Message-ID: <1991Apr28.020220.225@odi.com>
Date: 28 Apr 91 02:02:20 GMT
References: <71280@brunix.UUCP> <1991Apr18.230012.12838@dbase.A-T.COM> <1991Apr21.004144.16332@welch.jhu.edu> <1991Apr25.205639.2079@dbase.A-T.COM> <73732@brunix.UUCP>
Reply-To: dlw@odi.com
Organization: Object Design, Inc.
Lines: 66
In-Reply-To: pew@cs.brown.edu's message of 27 Apr 91 18:04:42 GMT

In article <73732@brunix.UUCP> pew@cs.brown.edu (Peter E. Wagner) writes:

   |> I'd like you to consider your claim that dBASE IV 1.0 was "obviously rushed
   |> to market too soon."  What "facts" do you base that statement on, other than
   |> printed reports?  I used 1.0 for real applications for almost a year before
   |> switching to alpha 1.1.  Have you used 1.0 and did you discover any bugs,
   |> or did you just "lose faith" based on what you heard? 

   This sounds like the lawyer on LA Law trying to make a good case: "But
   you never actually SAW the man put the gun in your husband's mouth and
   pull the trigger, right?  Didn't you say that you were groggy from the
   blows..."

Excuse me.  I don't use any of the products under discussion and I
don't have any opinions or any stakes in the point under dispute.  But
I would like to point out that your reply to Mr. Dallas's question
isn't very convincing.  He asked a pretty straightforward question.
He wanted to know on what evidence you based your judgement.  Instead
of making any attempt to answer his question, you simply state that it
is so obvious that there is no need to answer.  Perhaps you have
enough information about the situation that it's obvious to you, but
it may not be so obvious to everyone else.

I presume you aren't really trying to persuade Mr. Dallas; I presume
you don't really think that you're going to change his opinion about
this.  You're really addressing the other people who read
comp.databases.  If you want to persuade them that your opinion is
more accurate than his, I think you'd be more effective if you
presented your evidence.

So did you use 1.1?  Did you discover any bugs?  If you didn't do it
first hand, you must have heard about it from somewhere else.  Was
that somewhere else the press, or something other than the press?  I
think these are fair questions, and I'd be interested to hear your
answers.

			     Do the software reviewers give Paradox
   consistently high marks, consistently much higher than dBase, because
   there is some sort of conspiracy?  Man, you guys really are paranoid,
   aren't you?

Similarly, stripped of the sarcastic tone, this is a fair question for
Mr. Dallas to address.  He said that "it was market perceptions that
affected the bottom line, not technical imperfections."  Now, the most
obvious cause of negative perceptions is negative reality, but that's
not necessarily the only cause.  So, the interesting question is if
there weren't significant technical imperfections, why did negative
market perceptions arise?

					       Distribution channels?!
   Since when has this been a problem for AT?  

(He didn't say that it was.  He was speaking in general, about reasons
that software products can have problems other than technical
inferiority.  I don't think he meant to imply that Dbase itself has
this problem.)

   Superior products speak for themselves to those who are qualified to
   judge the differences.  The developer community is a good barometer.

So is it your position that the majority of product buyers (or 44%, or
whatever the market share is) are not qualified to judge the
difference?  If so, then I think you're actually agreeing with Mr.
Dallas's main point, which is that product success is not necessarily
determined solely by "technical superiority".  And at first it seemed
to me that you weren't agreeing about anything...