awd@dbase.a-t.com (Alastair Dallas) (04/30/91)
In article <2333@abcom.ATT.COM>, mdb@abcom.ATT.COM (3030 ) writes: > From article <73539@brunix.UUCP>, by pew@cs.brown.edu (Peter E. Wagner): > > It would be nice if you guys just admitted that Fox's software is FAR > > superior to yours, stopped marketing dBase, and endorsed Fox Software Yes, and it would be nice if AT&T would just admit that MCI was better, and Hertz would give in to Avis and so on. What planet are _you_ from? > I agree with Peter. A-T much like IBM has for years over charged for a > product that was weak and slow. When the competion started to heat up > A-T ran to the judicial system instead of the development labs. Is IBM bad? I certainly take no offense at being compared to one of the most successful enterprises of all time. As for weak and slow, these are comparative terms. Yes, our competition is faster all around than dBASE III PLUS. However, dBASE IV 1.1 wins some benchmarks and loses others. But even if we are slower, we're still the most full- featured by far and we are available on more platforms and in more languages than anybody. This is not "weak" on any scale I can imagine, and even though competitors like Paradox and Fox may have extremely ardent supporters in netland, let me remind those who are patient enough to read on that Ashton-Tate has sold more database management systems than anyone in the world. If you think "that was then," I'll remind you that we own 55% of the PC dbms software market now. I'm sorry we sued Fox--I wouldn't have done that, no matter how justified we are. As fate would have it, I had the same thing happen to me before I came to work at A-T. My struggling little software company attracted a guy who decided he could write software to my manual's spec better than I could. It's not fun when someone steals your intellectual property and just glides over that agonizing "what should I write?" phase of software development. If Fox had shown any originality at all with their first version, I wouldn't have been so upset. As it is, their more recent stuff shows me that they've been advised to be as different as possible but that they just can't muster much creativity. I plan to bury them with what I'm writing now--stay tuned to see if I'm right. But, as I said, suing Fox was the previous CEO's idea. The current CEO (who comes from IBM, by the way :-) has a much more enlightened attitude. My understanding is that the suit would have been settled long ago if it wasn't for the incredible arrogance of the Fox people. I wouldn't have sued them, but if they don't want to settle, I hope we nail 'em big time. In any case, I personally am spending all my time competing in the development labs as everyone seems to think we should. > When the leading mebers of the Xbase community tried to set standards > A-T refused to sit on the committe even though they were asked several > times to participate. Excuse my arrogance, but refering to the previously quoted market share, I feel justified in saying that Ashton-Tate is the leading member of the Xbase community and if we want to write a standard we'll just do it. The committee you're talking about consists of several individuals who (like me) have been riding Ashton-Tate's coattails for the last decade. dBASE IV is the dFacto standard. I'm not saying we're better than everyone, just that we happen to be leading this particular parade and I don't have much use for people who want to run around in front before they've earned that position in the market. > Consultants whom helped build them into the > company we know today were sued if part of their advertising included > Dbase compatibility. Not that I've ever heard of. Ashton-Tate can't sue someone quietly-- it gets big time press whenever we get backed into a corner enough to actually go to court. > A-T used to have a good product but like many in our industry, they > sat back and counted the money instead of paying attention to the > market. We can certainly agree on this point. I don't feel like I ever lost track of our customers, and I didn't see any arrogance from my fellow dBASE IV developers, but our last CEO and the marketing idiots he hired sure seemed to have blinders on. When we were making money, we attracted every high-priced leech in a suit. When we lost money one quarter, you should have seen them scramble. By the time the CEO got the boot, he'd already jettisoned most of his cronies. We've been rebuilding ever since. The new CEO has my full respect. Whenever he speaks to the employees, he always emphasizes how we're doing on being customer-oriented. We have letters posted in the lunch room from satisfied tech support callers--it's clear that you're doing a good job here if the customers are happy. That's not that hard to translate to product development; we know what to do and we're doing it. I'm sorry if we're not making everyone happy with us. I think some people gave up on us before change of CEOs, and I think others just want somebody to pick on. You can't please everyone, but you still have to try. /alastair/ -- |Disclaimer: I am speaking for myself, not as a spokesman for Ashton-Tate, |which does not monitor my outbursts here. I reserve all rights to my |opinions in terms of commercial endorsements.
awd@dbase.a-t.com (Alastair Dallas) (04/30/91)
In article <182@ahmcs.uucp>, alan@ahmcs.uucp (Alan Mintz) writes: > In article <1991Apr24.160831.9828@dbase.A-T.COM>, awd@dbase.A-T.COM (Alastair Dallas) writes: > > to the effect that we should now settle with Fox and get on with competing > > in the marketplace, not the courts. > > Now I could be wrong, but I doubt you'll find many people willing to cheer > with you... Well, everyone seems to say that we should compete in the marketplace. Or are you just saying that everyone wants us to lose the suit? I've said that I wouldn't have sued Fox, but since we have and we're a publicly traded company, how can we do anything but proceed? > I find myself in a position of HAVING to convert a Fox application to > dBase IV because it needs to run on VMS. Is that a "thanks for making dBASE IV cross-platform" I hear? :-). Did you know that compiled .dbo files are binary-compatible so you can develop on a PC or a Macintosh for a VAX target or vice versa? You're welcome :-). > Thank <insert deity here> for > Step IVward, which takes care of the change in array syntax... You're welcome again :-) Not taking the place of the <deity>, but Ashton-Tate publishes Step IVward. > ...(when was the last > time you saw a high-level langauge compiler or interpreter change a primary > syntax rule ?). Ask Fox why they don't support the language as defined by the industry leader. They had arrays first, but we did them right and they failed to change theirs. (Hold your flames--I'm being intentionally provocative here; Fox is a fine product and their arrays are wonderful, okay?) > It sure is a pain to try and come up with substitutes for things that just > aren't in dBase IV like filtered indices, ALL those SYS functions (only some > of which have similar equivalents), etc. Yes, isn't ? SYS(<small integer>) a fabulously mnemonic language construct? What do they have in SYS() that you need? Tell us and we'll put it in and then you'll have it on all the platforms that we support (unlike FoxPro's incompatibilities with their Macintosh version). dBASE IV v1.1 supports "filtered indices" with the FOR clause added to the INDEX command. > I have little sympathy for a company that deliberately releases a product that > doesn't have features that competing products have had for years. You mean Fox failing to support MDX files? or QBE? or the dBASE/SQL? (Just flaming--it feels good now, but you'll jump all over me tomorrow :-). > This suit, > from the beginning, seems like nothing but sour grapes. That's how it seemed to me, too, which is why I wouldn't have done it. What people forget is that we're suing them over the product they sold in 1986 which was an absolutely exact clone of dBASE III PLUS. They copied every character on every screen, the exact wording of every error message, everything. The money from that let them develop products that were at least somewhat different. If you develop software, imagine how you'd react to competing with your own product in the marketplace. /alastair/ -- |Disclaimer: I am speaking for myself, not as a spokesman for Ashton-Tate, |which does not monitor my outbursts here. I reserve all rights to my |opinions in terms of commercial endorsements.
glenn@welch.jhu.edu (Glenn M. Mason) (05/02/91)
In article <1991Apr29.204945.6346@dbase.a-t.com> awd@dbase.a-t.com (Alastair Dallas) writes: >In article <2333@abcom.ATT.COM>, mdb@abcom.ATT.COM (3030 ) writes: >> From article <73539@brunix.UUCP>, by pew@cs.brown.edu (Peter E. Wagner): [ lots of stuff deleted ... ] >and even though competitors like Paradox and Fox may have extremely >ardent supporters in netland, let me remind those who are patient >enough to read on that Ashton-Tate has sold more database management >systems than anyone in the world. If you think "that was then," >I'll remind you that we own 55% of the PC dbms software market now. ^^^^^^^^^^ That doesn't mean jack shit. You make that statement as if it means something. It is a fact, but it is indicative of nothing. dBASE was first to market and it was sometime before any real competition appeared on the market. I think this has much to do with *why* A-T is the market leader, but ... I'd be willing to bet that number will drop significantly in the years ahead. (I wonder how many of those systems sold are sitting on a shelf somewhere collecting dust?) >I'm sorry if we're not making everyone happy with us. I think some >people gave up on us before change of CEOs, and I think others just I doubt if many dBASE users gave up on dBASE because of a change in A-T personnel. The percentage of users who have any knowledge of A-T, its personnel and its decision making is probably very small. I have a small one-question quiz for you: 1) Users of a relational database package are most likely to abandon use of the product (that they probably spent hundreds of dollar on) and purchase and relearn a competitors product to do their work if a) the company who markets the product changed CEO, b) the user ports code for a living and likes to spend money or c) the original product sucks! Glenn -- Senior Research Programmer Analyst Laboratory for Applied Research in Academic Information William H. Welch Medical Library, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
alan@ahmcs.uucp (Alan Mintz) (05/02/91)
In article <1991Apr29.211326.8090@dbase.a-t.com>, awd@dbase.a-t.com (Alastair Dallas) writes: > In article <182@ahmcs.uucp>, alan@ahmcs.uucp (Alan Mintz) writes: > > In article <1991Apr24.160831.9828@dbase.A-T.COM>, awd@dbase.A-T.COM (Alastair Dallas) writes: > > > to the effect that we should now settle with Fox and get on with competing > > > in the marketplace, not the courts. > > > > Now I could be wrong, but I doubt you'll find many people willing to cheer > > with you... > > Well, everyone seems to say that we should compete in the marketplace. > Or are you just saying that everyone wants us to lose the suit? Yes, I am saying that everyone wants you to lose the suit (from what I have heard, seen, and read). The best way to "get even" with Fox is to outsell them (which you do). > I've said > that I wouldn't have sued Fox, but since we have and we're a publicly > traded company, how can we do anything but proceed? There is no shame in admitting that the suit is, perhaps, not worth continuing. Many would view such an action as new management's willingness to do what is right. > > I find myself in a position of HAVING to convert a Fox application to > > dBase IV because it needs to run on VMS. > > Is that a "thanks for making dBASE IV cross-platform" I hear? :-). Did you > know that compiled .dbo files are binary-compatible so you can > develop on a PC or a Macintosh for a VAX target or vice versa? You're > welcome :-). Yes, I suppose it is a thank you, with the reservations that followed. > > Thank <insert deity here> for > > Step IVward, which takes care of the change in array syntax... > > You're welcome again :-) Not taking the place of the <deity>, but > Ashton-Tate publishes Step IVward. but you didn't write it. (This may not be fair, I don't know if you commissioned the work from Rich or simply bought the publishing rights after the fact). > > ...(when was the last > > time you saw a high-level langauge compiler or interpreter change a primary > > syntax rule ?). > > Ask Fox why they don't support the language as defined by the industry > leader. They had arrays first, but we did them right and they failed > to change theirs. (Hold your flames--I'm being intentionally provocative > here; Fox is a fine product and their arrays are wonderful, okay?) Perhaps I was f**ked on this one :-) > > It sure is a pain to try and come up with substitutes for things that just > > aren't in dBase IV like filtered indices, ALL those SYS functions (only some > > of which have similar equivalents), etc. > > Yes, isn't ? SYS(<small integer>) a fabulously mnemonic language construct? > What do they have in SYS() that you need? Tell us and we'll put it in and > then you'll have it on all the platforms that we support (unlike FoxPro's > incompatibilities with their Macintosh version). While I agree that SYS(14,1) is somewhat difficult to remember unless you use it a lot, the concept of putting "product-specific additions that were not part of the language at large" in a generic SYS function would seem to avoid conflicts with the syntax of other xBase implementations. Any and all of the SYS() funcs that StepIVward uses (DOS) .BINs for (not much good on a VAX). I'll dig up the list I did 3 months ago. Along the same lines, a built-in KEYBOARD command would save a lot of additional flag-passing code needing to get around it's absence. > dBASE IV v1.1 supports "filtered indices" with the FOR clause added to > the INDEX command. This was based on StepIVward's documentation (since it has not been updated to translate to 1.1) Yippee ! This would have been one of the biggest pains to get around. > > This suit, from the beginning, seems like nothing but sour grapes. > > That's how it seemed to me, too, which is why I wouldn't have done it. > What people forget is that we're suing them over the product they sold > in 1986 which was an absolutely exact clone of dBASE III PLUS. They > copied every character on every screen, the exact wording of every > error message, everything. The money from that let them develop > products that were at least somewhat different. If you develop > software, I don't remember enough about 2.0 to recall if it was truly a verbatim copy. If so, you have a point. We're dealing with someone who is trying to do a look-and-feel copy of our software, and you're right, it's infuriating. > imagine how you'd react to competing with your own product > in the marketplace. Not quite accurate. You were competing with a product that was technically superior. Fox's low market share (by comparison) indicates (IMHO) that the people that bought Fox were those qualified to judge the technical differences. They probably couldn't have cared less how the error messages were worded, or how the screens looked - they bought it on technical merit. -- < Alan H. Mintz | alan@mq.com | ...!uunet!ahmcs!alan >
landers@zeus.mgmt.purdue.edu (Christopher Landers) (05/02/91)
In article <1991Apr29.204945.6346@dbase.a-t.com> awd@dbase.a-t.com (Alastair Dallas) writes: >In article <2333@abcom.ATT.COM>, mdb@abcom.ATT.COM (3030 ) writes: >> From article <73539@brunix.UUCP>, by pew@cs.brown.edu (Peter E. Wagner): >> A-T much like IBM has for years over charged for a >> product that was weak and slow. > >Is IBM bad? No, they have just managed to convince the majority of the computer world to pay more money for less product. Having kept this up for decades, I'd say they're doing something right, at least withing the realm of capitalism. If A-T can fool the market with the same tatic, more power to them. If you don't like their product, don't buy it. I was an A-T fan until the release of dbIV, now I'm not. I don't like the product; I don't use it; I don't recommend it. I've read alot about Foxware on the net and in the trade rags, but I've yet to actually ever see a copy of it anywhere. I see dbIII+, IV and Clipper stuff all over. -- <================================><===============================> || Christopher Landers || PURDUE UNIVERSITY - KRAN 708 || || Krannert Computing Center || West Lafayette, IN 47907 || <=================== landers@zeus.mgmt.purdue.edu ================>
awd@dbase.a-t.com (Alastair Dallas) (05/07/91)
In article <186@ahmcs.uucp>, alan@ahmcs.uucp (Alan Mintz) writes: > I wrote: > > Ashton-Tate publishes Step IVward. > > but you didn't write it. (This may not be fair, I don't know if you > commissioned > the work from Rich or simply bought the publishing rights after the fact). I don't know, either. But Rich Comeau (sp?) certainly wrote it. At essence, Ashton-Tate is a software publisher. We happen to have an in-house development staff, but the business is publishing. > While I agree that SYS(14,1) is somewhat difficult to remember unless you > use it > a lot, the concept of putting "product-specific additions that were not > part of > the language at large" in a generic SYS function would seem to avoid > conflicts > with the syntax of other xBase implementations. Any and all of the SYS() funcs > that StepIVward uses (DOS) .BINs for (not much good on a VAX). I'll dig up the > list I did 3 months ago. Along the same lines, a built-in KEYBOARD command > would save a lot of additional flag-passing code needing to get around it's > absence. dBASE can't really be concerned with avoiding "conflicts with the syntax of other xBase implementations," IMHO. We're the dFACTO standard, moving at glacial speed to implement our user's wishlists. The xBase community gets a few things right, a few things wrong with each release; they're forced to catch up with the standard, not the other way around. (This is my opinion, and I respect that the more rabid xBase fans on the net may feel differently.) dBASE IV 1.1 has a KEYBOARD command, just as you suggest. I would recommend the 1.1 Change document as an adjunct to the StepIVward manual. (Here, BTW, is a good example of the preceding paragraph--people have been asking for a KEYBOARD command for years. The xBase community consists of a lot of ex-Ashton-Tate people who find they can implement wishlist items a lot faster on the outside.) As for .BIN files, we are moving the dBASE language away from platform- specific constructs and adding commands which make applications inherently cross-platform. For example, many people use the RUN command to do a 'cd' on MSDOS. For 1.1, we added the SET DIRECTORY command which is the same RUN cd (done more efficiently) on DOS, but which eliminates the need to invoke the operating system on one of our other supported platforms. We have a cursor on/off .bin file as a sample, but now we have SET CURSOR ON/off, which works cross-platform. > > What people forget is that we're suing [Fox] over the product they sold > > in 1986 which was an absolutely exact clone of dBASE III PLUS. > > I don't remember enough about 2.0 to recall if it was truly a verbatim copy. > If so, you have a point. We're dealing with someone who is trying to do > a look-and-feel copy of our software, and you're right, it's infuriating. Thank you. > > imagine how you'd react to competing with your own product > > in the marketplace. > > Not quite accurate. You were competing with a product that was technically > superior. Well, certainly faster. That makes it even more infuriating :-). > Fox's low market share (by comparison) indicates (IMHO) that the > people that bought Fox were those qualified to judge the technical > differences. > They probably couldn't have cared less how the error messages were worded, > or how the screens looked - they bought it on technical merit. It isn't _that_ good, IMO. I might well recommend it, based on specific requirements, but it is a subset of the dBASE IV functionality and they have taken pains in some places to duplicate our known anomalies. In some areas it's deliberately incompatible. We're each trying to solve the same problems and I don't think our solutions are all that different (while you might disagree with me, please accept my opinion that I am at least "qualified to judge the technical differences"--I've seen the source code to both products). Where Fox leans toward fast benchmarks, dBASE leans toward bureaucratic reliability. We meet in the middle. /alastair/ -- |Disclaimer: I am speaking for myself, not as a spokesman for Ashton-Tate, |which does not monitor my outbursts here. I reserve all rights to my |opinions in terms of commercial endorsements.