Post #7,899
9/6/01 11:50:52 PM
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Great Bridge Shutting Down
They provide the commercial version of PostGreSQL and support.
I got the article off of my.yahoo.com, but I noticed it had already rolled off when I went to find the link again.
Great Bridge said that they had gotten consulting gigs (installing, verifying installations, etc.), but that no large customers had signed up for long term support contracts.
34 of 37 employees were being laid off. Great Bridge was looking to place the 34 employees into some of their customer sites as employees. (Good Luck!)
Anyhow, I was wondering, why this didn't work. With DB2 costing $15K per CPU and with Oracle costing $40K per CPU, why couldn't a company like Great Bridge make it? Does this bode poorly for Sybase?
Won't relational databases become very expensive once we are down to two? (DB2 and Oracle).
Are there any significant commercial implementations ( a few hundred GB, 1 TB ) on PostGreSQL?
Just questions, no answers where.
Glen Austin
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Post #7,903
9/7/01 12:02:40 AM
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They couldn't get another round of funding.
The VCs know this game from bitter experience. You have a great product. The dominant Operating System publisher (Microsoft / Red Hat) comes out with pretty much the same thing. You can't compete because the other guy is leveraging his OS dominance. No sense in funding you further - your toast.
They also had the problem of selling their annual contract. If they'd sold support "as needed" they would probably have done a lot better.
Their market research firm interviewed me and I told them I didn't think the annual would fly, but I'm sure they didn't even read the market research because they announced their product and pricing just a few days later.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #7,905
9/7/01 12:19:11 AM
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Look at Informix
Informix had a product that was, in some comparisons, point-by-point better than Oracle.... but were plagued with disaster and mayhem.
Informix, circa 1990 (or is that 1985?) was a database leader. But they couldn't market themselves out of a wet paper bag. And they had some buggy releases and an absolutely disasterous money management/misaccounting problem (was that 1995 or thereabouts?) that IMO doomed them. Sometime early in the 90's Oracle overtook them like a marathon biker going past a runner.
This may have nothing to do with Great Bridge, but there are similarities. You may have the best product out there (please no arguments, whatever the merits Oracle has won vs. Informix), but you've got to effectively market the product.. Convince people it is good and convince people to use it.
Great Bridge apparently didn't do it. No argument about their ability. But many things can cause faiilure. Informiix, IMO, was cursed by marketing dumbth that would be worth of any Dilbert cartoon. I have no idea why Great Bridge died, but it very likely was because they could not sell themselves as a bettter solution to all those people who were leaning toward DB2 or Oracle.
French Zombies are zapping me with lasers!
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Post #7,908
9/7/01 12:51:08 AM
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The best product always loses
The guy with the best product knows it, so no need to waste a lot on marketing - the product will sell itself. Its superiority is obvious.
The guy with the second rate product knows it all too well, so he hires the best marketeers money can buy, and pays them three times as much as the engineers (who designed the crappy product). The marketeers hire some sales guys 'n gals to push the product while they generate the pull.
The guy with the better mouse trap is still waiting for the world to beat a path to his door, but all he's getting is better mice.
The world already got sold the second rate product, and marketing is sending out "feel good" packets to all the new owners telling them how smart they were to pick the product they bought.
Fred bought the better product and is telling everyone it's a lot better, and everyone is staring at him as though he's some sort of idiot.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #7,928
9/7/01 11:12:53 AM
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Such a good summary I just printed it + taped it to my door.
That's her, officer! That's the woman that programmed me for evil!
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Post #7,933
9/7/01 11:58:04 AM
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man, I have lived that
my former company was bought out by the second rate company. I bailed a couple of months before it happened.
Have fun, Carl Forde
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Post #7,944
9/7/01 3:18:50 PM
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Y'know.. when the cynical view becomes
simply, the actual formula in bizness - we're in Trouble.
Billy's diseased manipulation AND consequent obscene accumulation of the lyin's share of all wealth associated with any idea of 'IT' - has easily replaced any lingering.. wistful tendencies of the greed-besotted: to give at least token obeisance to 'ethics'.
After all, anyone so tempted has a Test Case\ufffd: It worked for Billy n'Bally and.. Figures don't lie.
We're in Trouble. The law? remedies? Hah! Truth is the first casualty of war.
Nuke.
That magnificent purifying heat \ufffd might be the pinnacle of ethical Teaching, for the great dull mass of ethical-retards spawned.. so recently. And so eagerly.
Bizness Solutions R Us LLPC speak softly, but carry a critical mass
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Post #7,948
9/7/01 3:42:15 PM
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Thought experiment.
Suppose you have 1 (one) ballistic missile with 20 kiloton warhead available for your personal use right now. Assume, furthermore, that the only consequence of the launch would be istantenious and painless elimination of, say, 20,000 people working at the Microsoft's Redmond compound, including every manger that works for MS.
Would you launch?
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Post #7,958
9/7/01 4:54:06 PM
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Metaphorically: in an instant.
Actually? Give me a break.
But somehow a means must be found legally - based upon documented previous behavior we all have read excerpts about:
To recognize the degree of harm that *has been willfully inflicted* (in present big case, affecting millions), and create new means for simply facing the Fact that - "perfectly unrestrained 'Capitalism'" is as much madness as was, "perfectly unrestrained Nazism". We can do that = realize and act from the knowledge. But there will be as much blather and Self-interested diversionary rhetoric as in any reform of an existing and popular dream. A real test of everyone's BS-filters.
The hard part will be the tossing-out of various fantasies about "The Holy Self-Correcting Market" for.. more realistic assessments of how the deranged have *actually gone about* circumventing laws based! on that wishful concept.
It'll be as tough a process as - the simpler-seeming one: pushing that button. Maybe.. equally as likely to occur, too (?) We learn so s l o w l y. Love to 'conserve' those illusions; prefer familiar rhetoric to courage.
My 3 kopeks
A. So how bad would it have to get.. before this work gets done? Exile to Elba of the principals? With no phone.
Nuke only eats bodies; can't stop the wannabes. Need that 'searing heat' of: actually effective laws, despite the purchase of legislators by, practitioners of the same scam. Impossible ??
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Post #7,961
9/7/01 5:25:17 PM
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Re: Metaphorically: in an instant.
That's what I expected (hoped for). Next time you use fiery (literary) rethorics, I'll know they are only "metaphorical". Taken literally, they make "unrestrained humanism" look just as bad as unrestrained anything else.
P.S. If DMCA and MS's sheninagans are good examples or unrestrained capitalism, they still fall far short of what unrestrained nazism (or, better yet, communism) brings. Check your scale.
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Post #7,969
9/7/01 7:46:14 PM
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Checked the scale: within a std. deviation?
Murican atrocities match most others, also in scale: the treatment of the Original Folks here - says it all. (No, not aware of a methodical census of the tribes, individuals massacred -- bet there are a number of PhD theses citing estimates, though.) As a % of local / world population at the times: bet *We're a Contender* in the overall homo-sap Annihilation Sweepstakes. Gentlemen - start your database engines. (Stalin likely gets the Gold, or.. does he?)
And we are better than most, at euphemism - we practically own the Olympic Gold in that, every year. God is (Known to Be) On Our Side, no matter what particular actions we are er "forced to take", day to day. In more recent times, we - along with the other 'enlightened nations' - were as deaf to the matters of the Hutus and Tutsis as: to the boat-load of Jews turned back to Nazidom and extermination. Etc. (too 'icky'?)
No, I don't see anything redemptive in our chosen Dream of Capitalism VS all the other 'logical utopias' - each one so evidently subvertible by the subtlety of (greed+ego). All the -isms suffer from the same idea of having 'solved' that! Pshaw.
Is the searing heat of fission - a worse phenomenon than the daily institutionalized poverty imposed by the very-few upon very-many of the rest? Remember: there are millions of (untimely) *deaths* brought about by the same corruption as divides up the wealth and deposits over half -- among the current 3-5%. Is a lingering death counted differently from an instant one? ('specially say re 'working below poverty level' = no medical AND industrial-caused cancer?)
(One of millions of tales: the Uranium miners who fueled the madness of M.A.D. all those decades. They died later, some still are - from the Radon and other byproducts of mining (mostly Carnotite ore in US). No protection: though the fact that protection Was needed - Was Known. Even then.)
Then there's Ed Curry. He's dead - early too. Imagine Billy will ever pay a dime to his family? By our vaunted system of justice? How typical is that situation we here know so well: as regards other Corporate (That 3-5% on BOD) malfeasance VS an individual? Sue? Hah !!
So is that fireball a worse fate than the integrated total of those deaths -?- or just flashier? I get so confused by how Pro-life we all seemingly imagine we are -- on those scales. We 'avert our eyes' a lot, in support of that Murican Dream\ufffd - no?
Maybe you can figure it out - we like figures too, a lot.
Ashton On second thought - have ya got one a bit smaller? say 1 KT? Neutron-enhanced - the buildings could be a jail for the other perps. Like the 500 lawyers at the bottom of the Marianas Trench: it's a start..
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Post #8,095
9/10/01 11:18:02 AM
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Re: One death is a trgedy, a million is a statistic.
> Murican atrocities match most others, also in scale: the treatment of the Original Folks here - says it all. (No, not aware of a methodical census of the tribes, individuals massacred -- bet there are a number of PhD theses citing estimates, though.) As a % of local / world population at the times: bet *We're a Contender* in the overall homo-sap Annihilation Sweepstakes. Gentlemen - start your database engines. (Stalin likely gets the Gold, or.. does he?)
I think he does... Apparently, between 1917 and 1953 Russia lost 68 Million people (between 1/2 and 1/3 of the population at the end of the period. Since no one managed to get the exact count, it was estimated by demographic patterns: how many people do you have to kill to keep country's populationat the same for 40 years?). That's just dead, not counting the ones who managed to survive.
> > And we are better than most, at euphemism - we practically own the Olympic Gold in that, every year. God is (Known to Be) On Our Side, no matter what particular actions we are er "forced to take", day to day. In more recent times, we - along with the other 'enlightened nations' - were as deaf to the matters of the Hutus and Tutsis as: to the boat-load of Jews turned back to Nazidom and extermination. Etc. (too 'icky'?) > > No, I don't see anything redemptive in our chosen Dream of Capitalism VS all the other 'logical utopias' - each one so evidently subvertible by the subtlety of (greed+ego). All the -isms suffer from the same idea of having 'solved' that! Pshaw.
The very possibility of you and me having this discussion is "redemptive" in my eyes. People were annihilated for far less in other "utopias". I don't think you can _imagine_ a world where people are sent for 10 years hard labor for exchanging e-mail, can you?
> > Is the searing heat of fission - a worse phenomenon than the daily institutionalized poverty imposed by the very-few upon very-many of the rest? Remember: there are millions of (untimely) *deaths* brought about by the same corruption as divides up the wealth and deposits over half -- among the current 3-5%. Is a lingering death counted differently from an instant one? ('specially say re 'working below poverty level' = no medical AND industrial-caused cancer?) >
The difference is not between the manner of death. The difference is (I hope) between you and them. They caused distraction and frustration at levels that can kill people. You, presumably, want to stay better than they are.
> (One of millions of tales: the Uranium miners who fueled the madness of M.A.D. all those decades. They died later, some still are - from the Radon and other byproducts of mining (mostly Carnotite ore in US). No protection: though the fact that protection Was needed - Was Known. Even then.) >
At least those people were paid. At least they could get away from it, if they knew better. I still maintain that comunism and nazism are far more destructive than anything capitalism has been so far. The very worst of capitalism, slave trade, is still better than concentration camps. At least slaves were valuable. Prisoners in Russia were _supposed_ to survive for 3 months on general works. After that, the faster they die, the better.
> Then there's Ed Curry. He's dead - early too. Imagine Billy will ever pay a dime to his family? By our vaunted system of justice? How typical is that situation we here know so well: as regards other Corporate (That 3-5% on BOD) malfeasance VS an individual? Sue? Hah !! > > So is that fireball a worse fate than the integrated total of those deaths -?- or just flashier? I get so confused by how Pro-life we all seemingly imagine we are -- on those scales. We 'avert our eyes' a lot, in support of that Murican Dream? - no?
Again. If you want to go into the Book (whoever writes it) on the same page as Billy, go use that warhead. Please do not complain afterward. > > Maybe you can figure it out - we like figures too, a lot. > > > > Ashton > On second thought - have ya got one a bit smaller? say 1 KT? > Neutron-enhanced - the buildings could be a jail for the other perps. Like the 500 lawyers at the bottom of the Marianas Trench: it's a start.. >
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Post #8,128
9/10/01 4:47:07 PM
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You win, of course - re 'the means'.
Of course, nuking *anyone* is - while it remains the strategy of several nations including This one right now - unthinkable. D'Oh.
But I still believe that the comparison of daily attrition via ingrained manipulation of the entire National wealth - is fairly comparable to.. instant annihilation. The latter is merely a longer process of curtailing the means for survival, making that life unnecessarily harsh - only.. there's no large \ufffd to get everyone's Attention. So we distract them with circuses and pious slogans.
Besides as regards the labels - 'Communism' has never ever been tried, and only flavors of er Socialism -- these were mostly more akin to Fascism with window dressing of stirring slogans which never were practised.. Ditto 'Capitalism' - as we are playing out right now re the Question,
Is there in Fact *any* enforcement of antitrust; any remedy for the many other Corporate excesses seen to be increasing, all around us?
We'll see, won't we?
A.
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Post #7,962
9/7/01 5:26:29 PM
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Mitnik them
White guys in suits know best - Pat McCurdy
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Post #7,966
9/7/01 6:29:49 PM
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/me wipes sweat off his face...
Okaaaay... Back away from the little red button, okay? ^_^
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Post #8,105
9/10/01 12:16:32 PM
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Great sig.
Right on topic, too.
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Post #8,106
9/10/01 12:33:24 PM
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Interesting that it should work out that way.
I was actually being a little more literal.
I work at the Redmond Microsoft campus. ^_^
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Post #8,129
9/10/01 4:54:17 PM
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Just keep humming that mantra..
Yea though I walk through the rank shadow of Billy n'Bally, I shall ...
And..
And...
And....
FIND THAT SWITCH which turns off: The [here's why you must upgrade] built-in Bugs. <<<<<
Y'hear ??
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Post #8,354
9/11/01 3:05:23 PM
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I'm lookin', I'm lookin'...
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Post #7,910
9/7/01 1:02:35 AM
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Fortunately it's not the end of PostgreSQL
since it's still an open source project. This is one of the best features of open source projects -- you're not screwed if the developing company decides to screw you (like MS, by buying a company and then dumping the new product (MatLab recently did this), etc).
And, of course, there's still Interbase (got to keep CRC happy :-))
I'm not surprised that it's tough to make money off open source s/w -- e.g. reports that IBM and sombody else are investing more money in SuSE to keep it afloat. Partly I think people are still searching for a business model that will work. And, maybe it helps to have the consulting work first -- Zope is still in business.
Tony
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