We have a competitor who we come up against quite often in our
marketplace... I'm trying to find a series of advantages of our product
compared to theirs.

One I'm sure is that we use jBase, whereas theirs is based on Paradox (I
think) and uses the Borland Database Engine.

Can anybody provide me some insight to the "negatives" to using BDE in a
multi-user environment? Does it have scalability issues? Performance issues
? anything else I can use?

Thanks in advance
Simon

Simon,

IF they are using the BDE, then they can substitute databases fairly
easily. Based on the BDE alone, I'm guessing that the app is probably
written in Delphi?

If they ARE using Paradox, then they will have scalability issues
beyond 5 users (remember that Paradox is ultimately a single user
system). However, if they point the BDE at interbase, or Firebird (the
public domain/open source altrnative, based on code released in 2000)
then the scaleability issue goes out the window.

Why not fight them on the basis of application features & functions,
rather than MAKING the database an issue? Your users buy you app - not
the database !

Well, database is one of the items.. particularly as we have to justify the
cost of jBase in our system...

The main items are application but I was wondering whether the choice of
database would allow us to win points. I believe that it's paradox based
(the files all have .db suffixes)...

Do you have any links to reference scalability as an issue?

Regards
Simon
"Ross Ferris" <rossf (AT) stamina (DOT) com.au> wrote

Simon Verona wrote:
Hell yes. The BDE scales roughly as well as Microsoft Access, which is to say
barely at all. And Paradox - are Borland even selling that any more? It
doesn't rate a mention in the products section of their website. It
looks as if it's been relegated to a small component of Corel Office
rather than a full-blown programming environment.

If the thing really is written in Paradox, you should be able to blow
them away just by showing how adumbral that technology is. A rare treat
for an MV type to be on the other side of the "that old crap" argument,
no? <g>

OTOH, it;s possible that it's written in Delphi and just uses a Paradox
database, which is bad enough, unless they have an option to scale up to
a full-blown SQL database.

Luke

"We use Borland Delphi 7 for the programming, and data storage is achieved
using Paradox. Data access is performed via the Borland Database Engine
(BDE) 5.01 using the standard native driver for Paradox. " is what they say
on their web site!

Some independent links would be good...

Regards
Simon
"Luke Webber" <luke (AT) webber (DOT) com.au> wrote

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 23:39:55 -0000, "Simon Verona" <nomail (AT) nomail (DOT) zzz>
wrote:

Considering that they go on to state: "MySQL is our database server
choice for any web based data storage. " and "We are working on two
separate database connections. One is native MySQL which we believe
will be our database of choice. Second is a generic system whereby the
customer may choose their own database such as Microsoft SQL Server,
Oracle 9i, Interbase 6, etc, and our applications can sit above any of
them. " - I would suggest that the LAST thing you want to start an
argument on is the underlying database, unless you have similar plans
of course !

Dave

Dave Goldfinch wrote:
Except that they're not there yet. Meanwhile, they're migrating from the
BDE to MySQL and from standard Winblows to .NET. Plenty of opportunities
for them to screw things up royally in the process.

Luke

On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 13:22:07 +1100, Luke Webber <luke (AT) webber (DOT) com.au>
wrote:


Absolutely

However, in a sales situation, IMHO it is pointless to start an
argument unless you are very confident that you have the upper hand.

If the OP's application doesn't stand up on it's merits, then it is
desparation stakes to start bad mouthing the competition's technology.

While I have never used Borland products, many people whose opinions I
respect, say good things about them. I would suggest that Borland has
a somewhat higher profile in the wider community than JBase. However
good JBase is, like D3, it's profile outside the MV world is virtually
non existant.

Dave

Dave Goldfinch wrote:

True enough. Worse yet, we live in a glass hous. Put the brick _down_. <g>

I have used Borland, quite a bit in the past. My view is that, while
they used to be pretty damned good, they lost their way technically
years back. Around the time that Anders Hejlsberg got poached by Microsoft.

Although, to be fair, I think Anders was still lead architect when they
brought out Delphi 3, which, IMNSHO, really stank up the place. I was
jonesing for Delphi 3 (D3?), because they were promising interfaces a-la
Java. But when it came out, these interfaces were crippled COM-only
creatures, unworthy of my consideration. So I bailed to Java.

And then of course, Borland became Inprise and faffed around for a bit
pretending to be something they weren't, which really pissed off the old
diehard developers, and the price for all of their products went up
through the roof. I think I made the right decision.

Despite the Kylix thang, Borland is far too close to Microsoft IMO, and as
longs as Microsoft are calling the shots, Borland will always be the stupid
younger brother.

Speaking of Microsoft, I've been having a play with C# lately and I'm
extraordinarily underwhelmed so far. All these bloody square-bracket
meta-commands remind be of the old Microsoft assemblers. I no like!

Luke

Simon Verona wrote:
Hi Simon --
This is in the "for what it's worth" category. From your quotation
here, I could easily google for your competitor's web site, but I did
not know the name of your company to do my own quick comparison. So I
quickly googled you, found an e-mail address on a jbase list posting,
went to the domain and took a bit of a path to find your company web
site. This approach didn't present your most professional side (or,
worse yet, maybe it did? ;-). I appreciate seeing pictures, however,
and it was good to know there are some folks under 40 writing Pick
apps, so it was a delightful enough experience for me anyway.

Again, this is just a "for what it is worth" comment. I don't know
that prospective customers would do the same thing I did to check on
you or if they would care.
Cheers! --dawn

P.S. And, yes, my daughter already told me that if you google me you
get the dbdebunk sites that try to trash me. They get more traffic
than other sites with my name, so those rise to the top. One of the
pages has someone calling me "infamous." Ah well -- I showed such
promise as a child.