Richard Gambrell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>John,
>
>  Sorry to hear the bad news.  Please keep us (hp3000-l) informed as to
>your "progress" with Oracle.  A year might not be enough time, from what I
>hear, depending on the willingness to conform to the product.
>
>  Don't know if your company is a candidate, but more than one company
>(and University) has been caught between an inability to adapt (or
>de-evolve:-)) to an RDBMS/Unix solution and a failure to invest in keeping
>the "old guy" going and up-to-date.

We may need to enlist Wirt to discuss Richard's term (de-evolve) as
it applies to unpleasant expressions such as "been caught", "Yeah,
the unthinkable happened", "Sorry to hear the bad news", "the
willingness to conform to [Oracle]", which are not precisely positive
or full of joy and glory.  The whole idea may be wonderful for the
folks who end up getting all the money, of course, but that's a
different story.

Is there an Oracle fan club somewhere (NOT formed by commissioned
Oracle salespeople or by highly-paid Oracle consultants) that can
help us understand the psychology behind the whole thing?  I don't
mean the psychology of laughing all the way to the bank (this
psychology is typical of the "server" side that collects the money).
I mean the psychology of paying a high price for something that has
been profusely documented as painful all over the world (this
psychology is typical of the "client" side that pays the money).

I have noticed that whenever a person who is not well versed in the
art of enjoying good wine (but who has money to spare) goes into an
expensive restaurant (which might be slightly out of that person's
cultural league), such person "CHOOSES" wine by going for the most
expensive bottle.  This is called the "indexed price method" by those
in the know.

I happen to have a friend who works in an expensive restaurant in
Switzerland.  She tells me all kinds of funny stories about the
tricks that she and her colleagues play on customers who become nasty
and disrespectful to her (newly arrived United-Nation types or
Olympic Committee types, for instance).  She just brings a "special"
wine list that contains lousy wine with high prices.  The restaurant
staff likes to bury wine bottles in their garden to give them a
certain "patina" for this express purpose.  Once the nasty customer
selects such a bottle and "examines" its wine with a silly ceremony
designed to impress his guests, the fatuous customer says "great" to
the amusement of the entire staff in the restaurant, who know only
too well that the parvenu has no clue :-)

Is it just fashionable to pay through the nose?  Don't payers realize
that their payees are rolling on the floor with laughter?

So, what's up with Oracle?  Even more important, how can Oracle keep
this up?  I would love to hear from an honest and enthusiastic Oracle
fan who can set all of us straight.  Over a good bottle of wine,
perhaps?  Paid by the Oracle folks, of course!  I would not mind to
be wined and dined by them as they "educate" me.  But I would choose
the wine :-)


Still curious, after all these years.


Alfredo