In article <[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask] writes
<snip>
>
>Eloquence will be a small player in the database marketplace that is dominated
>by IBM, ORACLE, and Microsoft. After those three there are some second tier
>players and some free databases. You could include CISAM as second tier player.
>Typically the second tier player competes on price and Eloqence is going to
>compete on price and a unique API.
Niche markets, can be good markets.
>
>As Gavin said it is not bad that the user base is going to increase. I agree.
>But somehow you want to avoid 10 years later that the database is no longer a
>economically viable product. Who would have thought that 10 years ago in 1992,
>IMAGE was no longer an economically viable product? It had a larger user base
>and a large company backing it and it had been around 10+ years.
Unfortunately 10 years ago I probably had far less hope that the 3000
would be around in 10 years than I did 18 months ago with the
announcement of the "A" and "N" class boxes.
10 years ago INGRESS was giving ORACLE a run for its money, along with a
couple of others that have faded into the mist and SQL Server wasn't
even around. Long range predictions in this business are usually wrong.
>
>Look at this product, its user base is 1/10th of the HP3000, it has been around
>for 10 years, and it is a smaller company than HP.
>
>So for one of the most critical pieces of software how is that the product is
>economically feasible. It looks to me that its path will be of growth due the
>HP3000, then little growth and then slow decline.
>
As I understand it Eloquence is available for several OS's, NT, Linux,
HP-UX, and HP-Germany have only bought the rights to the HP-UX version
i.e. HP Eloquence. Therefore its survival is not purely dependent on HP-
UX
I understand that all the development/support? is still provided by
Marxmeier Software AG. Therefore even ignoring the revenue stream from
the established base that Eloquence has had over the last decade, my
take is that if only 1000-3000 further customers migrated to it on any
of the supported OS's and if those people were only paying $1000 per
annum support (for example only ) We have an additional annual revenue
stream of between $1M and $3M.
Now whilst that may not even register on the HP meter it is significant
revenue for an independent software house. Would I be worried using a
database that only had several thousand users and that was supported by
an independent company for whom it generated significant revenue, and
for whom the product was mainstream? No I wouldn't. In fact it would
make me far happier knowing that this was the case. If at a future date
HP decided it wasn't strategic then you could be reassured that
there would be a virtually seamless transition back to the people that
really develop and support the product.
So on economic grounds I personally wouldn't have a problem taking the
gamble that support for eloquence would be around for the next decade.
There may be a whole bunch of other issues I might take into
consideration before choosing it, but those will vary for every
different company looking at their migration strategy.
--
Alan Yeo
[log in to unmask] Just because you're paranoid
Phone +44 1684 291710 it doesn't mean someone isn't!.
Fax +44 1684 291712
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