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Conference ulysse::rdb_vms_competition

Title:DEC Rdb against the World
Moderator:HERON::GODFRIND
Created:Fri Jun 12 1987
Last Modified:Thu Feb 23 1995
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1348
Total number of notes:5438

1162.0. "Allbase & Powerbuilder?" by ODIXIE::CAIRNS () Wed Jun 10 1992 23:40

    Anyone have any information on Powerbuilder on Sybase and Powerbuilder 
    on Allbase.  Allbase is the HP database system.  I would like to know 
    how Powerbuilder compares to 4GL's in the VAX environment such as 
    Rally, Powerhouse, etc.....  Does it have a GUI?  How does Allbase 
    compare to Rdb?
    
    Thanks
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name		DateLines
1162.1Powerbuilder is slick...COHO::HEALYAlan Healy, SEOThu Jun 11 1992 02:2015
    Powerbuilder is a very slick 4GL that runs on Windows 3.0 and generates
    client/server applications.  I have competed with Rdb against the
    combination of Sybase/Powerbuilder twice, both unsuccessfully.  When
    the customer saw Powerbuilder, they wanted the database that it ran
    with (Sybase, not Rdb). Rally, Powerhouse, et al are no competition at
    all if the customer wants Windows client/server.
    
    I don't know if they are porting to Rdb, but we should pay them to do
    it.
    
    Allbase is, I believe, a port of Interbase, which was developed by a
    person who left DEC Rdb development.  As such, it has some similarities
    to Rdb/ELN.
    
    	Al
1162.2COOKIE::BERENSONLex mala, lex nullaThu Jun 11 1992 03:032
Allbase has no relationship to Interbase.  It is actually started as a
clone of DB2.
1162.3What's missing here?MBALDY::LANGSTONThe secret is strong ears.Fri Jun 26 1992 20:0124
    I have come across Powerbuilder three times in the last week, two were
    competitive and one was rather benign.  
    
    Regardless, the thing looks very slick.  The demo I saw was a sales
    tracking system.  The demo starts with a bunch of yearly totals,
    something like:
    
    year	wholesale	retail		other		total
    
    1987	12345.67	9876.45		23456.78	34234.56
    1988	45634.98	2121.56   	56435.78	87654.12
    1989	12345.67	9876.45		23456.78	34234.56
    1990	12345.67	9876.45		23456.78	34234.56
    1991	12345.67	9876.45		23456.78	34234.56
    
    By "double-clicking" on "1990" he got a breakdown by Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4.
    By then "double-clicking" on one of the quarters hea got a further
    breakdown.  My question is "How can they do something like this without
    some kind of intelligence in the product or programming?"  If they
    can't, why do customers fall for it?
    
    Or am I missing something?
    
    Bruce
1162.4They are slickTRCOA::MCMULLENKen McMullenFri Jun 26 1992 22:4011
    Bruce,
    
    I have seen products that do things like you describe. They are usually
    an Executive Information System product. The last one I saw was from
    Commshare - Arthur Tracking on the PC. You are correct about there
    being a lot of work done behind, but a lot of the functionality is
    "canned". A tool can infer a lot by the way the database is set up. If
    you have a calculated field made up of the sum of 4 quarters, why
    wouldn't a tool automated that breakdown?
1162.5We started to...SWAM1::JAIDKA_ASSat Jun 27 1992 02:365
    Two years ago I had seen a prototype of a similar tool developed by our
    AI Group in Valbonne, France. Its purpose was to provide a decision
    support capability exactly of the sort available in Power Builder. I
    have no idea what happened to that engineering effort; clearly it did
    not result in a product :-(