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> From: Brian Duncombe <[log in to unmask]>
>
> At 04:14 PM 1/18/98 -0700, toback2 wrote:
> >I wrote PDQ. It's a fairly safe bet that it would happen again.
> >Essentially every claim made in Cognos's lawsuit was false. They even
> >claimed that Quiz users don't own their own Quiz code; if it's written
in
> >Quiz, they said, it belongs to Cognos. But it makes no difference: he
who
> >has the most money for lawyers wins.
> This is a very timely subject for me!
> In 1986, as the designer and developer of the Carolian Sysview product, I
> left to form my own company and develop a performance monitoring tool.
<<  rest snipped>>

Does this bring back memories.  We (Performace Software Group) wrote
Fastran, a compiler for HP's Transact and saved HP's butt, because
they had made performance commitments that Transact (uncompiled)
couldn't meet.  HP talked to us about buying the product, but personnel
at HP in this area kept changing.  This, of course, after they first
 said "our technical people tell us that a compiler can't be
economically done". this, of course was all pre-RISC".  By the
time HP was ready to move (they weren't very generous, however), we
didn't need them, we were on our way.  HP had no choice but to
recommend us.  In the mean time, HP Europe had already put it on its
price list!  We then talked to HP about doing a native mode compiler.
Hah, while talking to us, (we needed certain technical information and
access to the assembler) HP went ahead and did the "imposible"
themselves.  So much for life in the big city!

Regards,

Nick Demos  [log in to unmask]
My opinions are my own and I stand behind them.

Performance Software Group
Tel. (410) 788-6777 Fax (410) 788-4476