[Info-vax] Information about RdbStar?

[Manfred Koethe]

I was Database Systems Research at that time, actually one of the two founders of the Database Research Munich office. I don't think the financial roof collapsed on DEC, it was rather forcefully collapsed on us by changing the top-level corporate management from engineering-minded to greedy. The termination of RdbStar and sell-off of the database business hit us hard just when we had just won a key European project developing a database infrastructure to support STEP-based design and manufacturing systems. 

On Monday, January 17, 2022 at 11:01:39 AM UTC-8, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2022-01-14, levin <robert.c... at gmail.com> wrote: 
> > I was one of the first people in RdbStar which eventually had about a hundred software 
> > engineers. So I am keenly aware of its history. In point of fact I have a tower of DEC 
> > tape cassettes that have the source code. It's in my office. The last physical remnence 
> > of a project which cost around 130 million dollars. I think I also have a functional spec 
> > of the distributed database query compiler. 
> > 
> > After years of growing pains integrating two organizations in Nashua N.H., and Colorado 
> > Springs, we finally got our act together and were about a year from release, but that was when the 
> > fiscal roof collapsed at Digital, and the project was downsized to an integration engine called DBI. 
> > 
> > Ping me if you want more information. 
> >
> If RdbStar had been released as a product, what would have been its 
> effect on the database market at the time ? From what I can see, it 
> looks like it would have had some very high-end and leading features 
> for the time. 
> 
> Would it have had any permanent effect on the database world of today ? 
> 
> It seems DEC was good at getting next generation products to the almost 
> ready to release stage and then killing them at that stage... :-( 
> 
> Simon. 
> 
> -- 
> Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP 
> Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.