| Sharon,
I suppose which 3rd party to work with depend on which part of the
world you are in. If the local representative is weak in support
they can be trusted business partner. On the other hand, if
they are strong and have better deal or cut in commission on another
hardware platform, they can be very tough and unreliable.
No matter what, always suggest Rdb right up front and always maintain
that Rdb is the best solution as seen by us. I have an experience once
where customer insisted on a database that have best portability.
Our sales did not tell customer that there is such a product call Rdb.
Instead they talk about Oracle and IDMS/SQL. Our competitor IBM
keep telling the customer that DB2 is the best for them all along
throughout the sales cycle.
Oracle seems to be in a WIN-WIN situation , no matter IBM win or
DEC win. IDMS/SQL was still not ready with their problematic version 1
released. When Oracle knew that thiers software does not support
Vaxcluster, which is the proposed hardware, the local distributor
began to favour IBM. And when the sales guys realised this, they got panic
and begin to talk what is Rdb to customer. {
If you are the customer, will you take the bite ?
Hence , the lesson learned is, that in every situation of database
sales opportunity, always promote Rdb up front be it soft sell or
hard sell.
Good luck,
Jeffrey Choy Singapore
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| I would recommend one of the following:
1) Recommend IBI/FOCUS with Rdb/VMS on VAXen, FOCUS native files on other
platforms. This gets the customer into the Rdb/VMS world and then they
can consider other products such as those that use SQL SERVICES
(DBASE, LOTUS, and many others who haven't disclosed their plans), etc.
2) Recommend INGRES_TOOLS_FOR_RDB with Rdb/VMS on VAXen, Ultrix/SQL on
Ultrix (if they have any Ultrix), and INGRES for everything else. Once
again this gets us the base engine on VAX and keeps the door open for
use of other DEC products.
The nice thing about both approaches is that even if they decide against
Rdb/VMS you have valid proposals. You could easily structure the
proposals with a non-Rdb/VMS option, which would save no money in many
cases since Rdb/VMS run-time is already included in the VMS price. So,
why not use it? Should be a fun sell job since you can push all
benefits and no cost.
In terms of meeting the needs as you described them (a not very complete
description), INGRES is the leader in distributed multi-platform
databases and RTI is a reasonable partner to work with. FOCUS is not
really a database system, so it doesn't directly compete. ORACLE is a
direct competitor, rarely delivers on its promises, and I;ve never heard
anything good about working with them. SYBASE is quite non-optimal for
the SMP or VAXcluster environment, runs on a relatively small number of
platforms, has had trouble delivering on its promises, has very limited
support by 3rd party tools, etc.
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