Hi Mike,

-=> On 13 Mar 97  23:17:23 Mike Bilow said to Andrew Grillet <=-

 MB> Andrew Grillet wrote in a message to Mike Bilow:
 
 MB> Platform independent database engines don't exactly seem like the wave
 MB> of the future to me.  
 
You suppose open architecture etc is doomed? You want us all to
be slaves of B Gates? Or throw away our fully working applications
and retrain all our staff?

 AG> Oracle is totally committed to Platfrom independent
 AG> database. They give away free copies of their OS/2 offering
 AG> - phone them and ask. Its a great product - industrial
 AG> strength etc, but does not have the front end that dBase
 AG> has. (Neither does DB/2_).

Actually, It turns out they DO have a front end. Unfortunately
their evaluation bundle did not include it, and they did not
send me any promotional material to tell me.

 MB> That's not what I meant!  Supporting multiple platforms is a great
 MB> idea, and Oracle has done a good job of it.  However, this is not the
 MB> same thing as writing a platform-independent database and trying to
 MB> run it everywhere, which will suffer from an enormous performance
 MB> problem. 

The different platforms would not be runing the same application,
even though the majority would access the same database. Some would
have bundles of data moved to their notebooks by floppy-disk-net.
They work at home, and might want LAN-Distance perhaps, but maybe not
sice theya re not very computer literate. They may be many of them,
doing relatively simple data entry.

There will probably be a couple of Win3.11 systems used for office
based data entry. The reason for using win3.x is that the users are
more famliar with it than win95.

Reports would likely be produced on machines running Win95, 
Probably only two of these systems, but some people actually 
like Win95. 

The development and server will be on OS/2  machines. Initially 
one of each.

However the initial one office Win95 and one office Win311 machines
are expected to grow to around 40 machines over a two year period.
split between win311 and Win95 will be determined by staff choice.

Personally, faced with hardware that will run win311 well, and 
win95 badly, I'd choose Warp :-)

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

I believe most of the more independent sources claim you need twice
the hardware for the same performance on NT.
 
 MB> Customers choose software first, then operating systems to match
 MB> software, and then hardware to match operating systems.  This is why
 MB> IBM still has a roaring success in the AS/400, certainly a machine
 MB> with some shortcomings. 

Unless you choose platform independent stuff, in which case,
value for money becomes an issue. AS400 can still stand a chance
on a big workload.

 AG> ... When I was a lad, you could get an O/S on a 360k floppy disk...

But we normally got them on punched cards or 1/2" tape.

Booting from the card punch, ahhh savour the thought....

Andrew


... Do bl Sp ce is a v ry saf  me hod of driv  compr s ion
--- Blue Wave/Max v2.30 [NR]