On Thursday, 97/02/20, Andrew Grillet wrote to Mike Bilow about
""Which C++ Compiler ... ?" as follows:

Hi Andrew,

AG> Oracle is totally committed to Platfrom independent database.
AG> They give away free copies of their OS/2 offering - phone them and
AG> ask.

Do you have a UK number from which I can obtain my free copy of Oracle
for OS/2?

AG> Its a great product - industrial strength etc, but does not
AG> have the front end that dBase has. (Neither does DB/2_).

I don't need front ends; I currently use DB2/2.

AG>  MB> this is primarily because OS/2 is not especially strong at database
AG>  MB> serving by comparison with, say, Unix.  
AG> 
AG> Can't see why it shouldnt be though. Conceptually OS/2's 
AG> multitasking is more suited to database serving than Unix's.

I agree with this. The exploitation of multiple threads within a
process makes OS/2 more suited than Unix for database servers, and
application servers in general.

AG> IBM could go far on this. I presume they are afraid of
AG> taking market from mainframes - this is a doomed strategy.
AG> They should know from the history of the mini and micro that
AG> the technology will take the business if its cheaper, even if
AG> IBM dont supply the product. (Same to DEC with knobs on).

It is also handy if you can rewrite the rules. IBM invented a new
metric a few years ago, called TCC (Total Cost of Computing). This
highlighted the overblown nature of the claims of client/server and
made the mainframe once more the weapon of choice for corporate
computing.

It also killed what little was left of the VAX market.

AG>  MB> On the other hand, there are
AG>  MB> people who take NT seriously as a database server, and that is
AG>  MB> inexplicable. 
AG> 
AG> Never tried it, but the magazines said it handled more users than
AG> OS/2  on the same hardware. 

All the benchmarks I've seen have indicated that you need 4 or more NT
servers for the same DB2 workload as you get from Warp Server
Advanced.

AG> Given the fact that the number of database servers must be growing
AG>  fast, while the games market mst be saturating, IBM really ought to
AG> try to get OS/2 into the server market.

Ever seen around the back rooms of a branch of Lloyds Bank?

[For non-UK readers: Lloyds Bank is a _huge_ company.]

AG> Compaines with less than 100
AG> people are really not going to go for big iron, cos they don't have
AG> the skills to support it. They normally have PC literate people
AG> though.

They _might_ have PC-literate people, but then again ...

[Incidentally, re-reading your previous sentence makes the adjective
'literate' seem quite humourous. ... :-) ]

Regards

Dave


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