Conference ulysse::rdb_vms_competition

IBM SELLS ORACLE on the System/88, does that mean they want ORACLE to
win sales on 370s?  Nope.  It is a fact of life that each vendor has
niche's they can't profitably fill themselves.  Sure, our marketing of
INGRES on Ultrix may cause some mixed-OS sites to put Ingres on a VMS
system.  But, the number of cases of that happening are bound to be rare
overall.

And what if we didn't market anything at all for Ultrix?  Then we would
lose the hardware sale AND they would still purchase INGRES (or worse)
for the Unix system and, maybe, still buy the same rdbms for their VMS system.

I'm just glad that the Ultrix folks were wise enough to pick INGRES from
RTI, a rather ethical company, rather than you-know-what from you-know-who.

      That's a poor comparison. The System/88 is not IBM hardware. It's
    made by Stratus, and MARKETED by IBM. It also accounts for an
    infinitesimal portion of IBM's business base. Ultrix is installed
    on (I'm guessing) around 20-30% of VAXes. The proper question is
    would IBM enter into a contract to sell Ingres on their VM operating
    system (around 30% of their installed base). I doubt that they would
    want that kind of penetration in their base.
       Secondly, about 6 months ago the local Oracle rep told me that
    DEC had contracted Oracle to write the Ultrix version on Rdb. Does
    this mean we have dumped Oracle in favor of Ingres. Admittedly,
    it's the lesser of two evils, but I still hate to see it. 
       In fairness, there are a lot of products out there that would
    satisfy our Ultrix customer's needs. Informix, Empress, and others
    have their "claim to fame" in the Unix universe. Having a contract
    agreement with RTI may not be a necessity if we CMP some other vendors
    and use them.
    
     --- Michael Booth

Ok, they also contracted with ORACLE for the RT PC, which is IBM hardware.

As long as we have no plans for an Ultrix version of Rdb, I don't really
see any grounds to object to the RTI agreement.  It is just a 
marketing agreement.  As long as Digital continues to deny that Ultrix
is strategic (it currently is only 'strategic' in the workstation
market), how can the agreement be taken as anything more than a tactical
niche-filling move?

I thought we also had an agreement with Informix.

Let's just say that ORACLE making such a premature claim (about us
marketing them on Ultrix) is typical of the kind of behavior that caused
INGRES to be selected.

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d i g i t a l
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TO: DISTRIBUTION			DATE: 22-MAY-1987
					FROM: Vickie Hall
					DEPT: Database PM
					LOC:  ZK02-2/M21
					EXT:  381-2512
					ENET: QUILL::HALL

SUBJ:  Update on relational databases on ULTRIX

I called Jim Despathy from the ULTRIX product management group this 
morning to learn what the status is re: arrangements with 3rd party
relational databases on ULTRIX.

SUMMARY:

The ULTRIX group does not want to focus on any particular database product, 
so they selected 4 to evaluate: Oracle, Ingres, Informix, Unify.

UNIFY - This is the only ULTRIX-based relational database product with a
  	Digital agreement today.

INFORMIX - Digital has been in negotiations, which are "on hold" for the
	   time being.

INGRES - No agreement yet.  Negotiations have been completed.  The agreement 
 	 is going through the approval cycle.  Jim plans to take a proposal 
	 to the ARB as soon as he finds a sponsor from industry marketing.  
	 The ULTRIX group has worked a lot with 3rd party products that layer 
	 on INGRES/ULTRIX and a suggested approach is to market the vertical
	 applications w/ INGRES and ULTRIX underneath.  They are looking at
	 a DDS agreement.

ORACLE - The discussion included a long dissertation on Oracle Corp.'s 
	 sleazy business practices and the poor showing of their product
	 at a Toronto OEM benchmark.  As a result, THERE IS NO PLAN FOR ANY 
	 KIND OF MARKETING AGREEMENT WITH ORACLE.  Bill Steul, Eli Lipcon,
	 Fran Murar, Len Pacheco and Jim all agree that there should be no
	 agreement at all.  Occasionally, we do receive a system bid, 
	 particularly in the government market, that specifies Oracle.  In 
	 order to fulfill these, Digital groups involved have agreed to use 
	 special one-time sales agreements for the particular sale, rather 
	 than a global marketing agreement with Oracle.


It is clearly stated in the INGRES agreement with RTI that it is limited
to ULTRIX only.  There are no internal use clauses.  Jim has agreed that all 
communications about the Ingres agreement will carefully specify that it is 
limited to ULTRIX only.  

    
    re: .3
    
    Note:  The RT/PC has sold less than 6,000 units, drastically under
    IBM's original plans for that system.  Oracle's presence here is
    also weak.  
    
    	However, if Oracle is still offered for AIX (the RT PC operating
    environment, this is significant since AIX was announced (4/2/87)
    for the IBM PS/2.
    
    re:  .4
    
        Having been with the company just about two weeks, I see another
    advantage of pushing for INGRES in the ULTRIX arena.  Of the recent
    rash of PC versions of RDBMS from these vendors, INGRES makes the
    most efficient use of available memory (640KB -- that used to be
    a lot) on 8088/8086 architectures.
    
    	Here is an opportunity to sell VAXs/MVs with ULTRIX/INGRES and
    add PC-INGRES for existing IBM & clone PCs -- and maybe even sell
    a few VAXMATEs in the process.  It beats losing those  PC 
    integration/server/connectivty projects in our customers to Unix
    servers or "big PC" (80386-based) LAN servers.
    
    	Having had the opportunity to review several of these PC products 
    (for SQL implementation's completeness, consistency with mini version, &
    effectiveness at providing a user interface that meets the "standards"
    of desktop workstation users as well as the completeness/efficiencies
    of INGRES and ORACLE for distributed databases (current and future
    products) -- I feel that INGRES is a good plus for Digital.
    
    (Note:  RTI publically disclosed this fact (my review of their
    product) to the media so it is appropriate for it also being made
    here).
    
    Regards,
    
    Larry "I know a little" T.