Ross and others, One would have to go back in time to around 1987 for those exciting attendance figures for Spectrum. The shows at that time were incredible events. Ask some of the old-timers like Charlie Noah and Henry Eggers - they can tell you some interesting stories about "history".
No, Pick isn't a fad, as fad's are fashion news. Most of us happen to work in an arena that is considered un-fashionable by mainstream IT, which tends to favor large staff and huge budgets that justify big salaries and senior IT titles. Pick shops don't generally have titles like chief information officer, Director of Information technology or Vice President of Information Systems. We tend to have a single programmer capable of supporting 500 users doing double duty as both support person and help desk while enhancing applications and running reports for management. We have allowed it to become an environment that is looked upon by management as a bastard child rather than as a valuable adjunct to the business. The mainstream world shines in their ability to sell management on their importance. I'll pose this question rhetorically to the group... what have we done to become the kicking post for CEO's and CFO's who now favor Oracle or even Microsoft SQL server as an environment? Essentially, we have tried to "cheap out" by telling ourselves and management that we can do it cheaper, when what we really should have been saying is that we can do it better, but we are going to need more money and more help and more education. We didn't get, because we didn't ask. Oracle sells because management "buys in" at the boardroom level or on the golf course where bragging is king and no one can brag about spending 50k on a database, but spending 2.5 million on Oracle implies bragging rights. Dick Pick although a gifted visionary in terms of seeing the elegance in the methodology to flexibly store and retrieve data, truly screwed up when Billy Gates asked hime if he would port Pick to a PC with two floppy disc drives, as he said "no, go #$%(* yourself" in a fit of pride. Lee Bacall http://www.binarystar.com Phone: +1 (954) 791-8575 Cell: +1 (954) 937-8989 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ross Ferris" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 8:51 PM Subject: RE: [U2] MV Fad > I don't recall there EVER being 5,000 people at a Spectrum conference (not that I have been to many) - and based on the previous 2 years that I have attended, 500 sounds like an increase. > > By definition a fad is also relatively short lived .... to even make reference to 5 years ago indicates that this is not the case - and the first International Spectrum I went to was 1992 ?, so I think that for a 'fast paced' arena like technology, multi-valued is not a 'fad' ..... though the growth rate could always be better :-) > > Ross Ferris > Stamina Software > Visage an Evolution in Software Development ------- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
