[Info-vax] Oracle loses appeal in HP/Oracle Lawsuit

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <nospam-FEB99E.16022214022013 at news.chingola.ch>,
	Paul Sture <nospam at sture.ch> writes:
> In article <ao45htFfa5qU1 at mid.individual.net>,
>  billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
> 
>> In article <1d4407f1-12af-4f43-9d3d-737d262da538 at googlegroups.com>,
>> 	Neil Rieck <n.rieck at sympatico.ca> writes:
>> >> 
>> >> As we become more and more like the EU.  Where else can a company be
>> >> ordered to lose money in a time of very hard economics.
>> >> 
>> > With all due respect, this has nothing to do with the US becoming like the 
>> > EU. Almost every western country allows monopolistic behavior but this 
>> > comes with a huge amount of government oversight. When companies get too 
>> > big, they can either live with the oversight (like the telcos did for over 
>> > 100 years) or break up their companies so they are no longer considered a 
>> > monopoly.
>> 
>> There is no comparison between the business model of a company like
>> Oracle and the early Bell telephone.  Bell relied on a very limited
>> resource (just how many cables do you think can be strung down a
>> single city street?)  And there are many who thnk granting special
>> priveledges to supposed "Public Utilities" is just plain wrong.
> 
> But Oracle (and other database vendors) do have customer lock in.  All 
> they have to do is keep price below the cost of migration to other 
> products.

That's called business and it is the same for anyone who sells a product.
Why do Coke and Pepsi sell for the exact same price?  If one sold for
more they would lose all their customers.  In the database game I would
expect that unless there is something truly unique in the product there
is really little other than price to keep customers.

> 
> "Oracle don't have customers, they have hostages" - Anon.

Hogwash.  But then, if you elieve that, what of MS?  Why are they not
considered a monopoly.  It's a lot harder and much more work to move
from Windows to Unix, VMS or MVS than from one database to another.
Heck, I have an example of a database that accompanied a book on Sybase
that ported rather easily to MySQL and Postgres allowing people to
use the Sybase text to learn how to do SQL on either of the other
two databases.  

> 
>> > No one can deny the fact that Oracle is king of the relational database 
>> > world because they've got the best software in that marketplace (IMHO). 
>> 
>> And that somehow makes them a monopoly?  Microsoft has a even stronger
>> stranglehold on their niche and I don't see anyone calling them a
>> monopoly.
> 
> Have you forgotten the long running legal battle about Internet Explorer?

And yet, my Windows all come with IE.  And you still can't remove it.
You may be able to browse the web with other offerings, but if you
try removing it you will break Windows.

> 
> Or more recently, the "browser poll" they agreed to introduce in the EU?

Don't know anything about that.

> 
> Which incidentally, they managed to "forget about".  I know that the 
> couple of Windows 7 installations I got a couple of years ago didn't 
> include that.  Strictly speaking I am not in the EU, but one of those 
> Windows 7 packs was manufactured in Germany.
> 
>> > But they raised more than a few government eyebrows when the acquired MySQL 
>> > (probably with the intention of slowing its development). But in the end, 
>> > no one really cared because there were other open alternatives available, 
>> > like MariaDB, which most Linux distros are moving to now. 
>> 
>> Or maybe they didn't care because MySQL was a piece of crap.  It is the
>> database of choice for people who know nothing about databases.
> 
> Betamax and VHS?

Not the same.  There was no money involved.  And I would be willing to
bet that Betmax being from Sony had something to do with people's
rejection of it.  I will not use any Sony product for which there is an
alternative.  One only accepts being screwed so many times before taking
action.

bill
 

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>