I see that http://www.edp.co.uk/ still markets UniVision, as does Via
Systems http://www.viasystemsinc.com/. I am likely out of touch, but I
do not know anyone personally who uses UniVision and I don't think I
have a contact inside of UniVision right now. Does anyone have a guess
about the number of customers/licenses? I see from their web site that
EDP is selling some significant property. Does anyone know the status
of this company?

And then there is that question of market share. If we were to divvy
up the pie chart where the entire pie was all of the licenses (maybe
an old way to measure) or number of customers (vars and end-customers)
or revenue from MultiValue databases (pick one or more or come up with
another), how would this pie be divided among:

Tiger Logic
Rocket Software
LadyBridge
Mpower1 (or Temenos?)
Win-Win
InterSystems
Northgate
EDP

Am I missing anyone?

Which of these companies are getting new customers for their MV
implementations these days? I'm thinking that Rocket, TigerLogic, and
jBASE are slow in getting new customers right now, where LadyBridge,
InterSystems, and maybe Northgate are doing some conversions? I could
be wrong. I have no guess on whether Revelation or UniVision are
getting new VARs (or new Saas companies). I'm interested in both facts
(hard to get) and opinions/impressions/guesses. --dawn

Dawn,

I started using UniVision 3 years ago on some small clients. At that
time they had an office in Colorado and little support. Since then
they have closed the office in Colorado and tech support is via email
to England. Response time is not that great, but fortunely not needed
much. My reason for using UniVision was the low cost of ownership.
$499.00 buys you a 3 user system. There is a year software/maintenance
of $49.00 per user, but when they had local (US) support it was worth
it.

I have started looking at Pavuk for Web interface and find that it is
very good and provides a clean interface to OpenQM. This product is in
the early stages,but there are great possibilities for further growth.
Bill Crowell has anounced Linux support as well as Mac OS X support. I
have even been able to demo the system on my Iphone. I have tested it
on Windows IE, Firefox, Chrome, Ipad, and Safari. Being an old time
Picker it has been hard to accept not writting Pick code, But selling
'flat' screen is getting harder and harder.

Rodney

On Sep 22, 9:19 pm, dawn <dawnwolth... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
I've been using UniVision since 2003. Can not beat the price or the
reliability. Yes, email support is an issue, but since I only have to
email EDP once or twice a year, it's not a big deal. The only thing
i'm not thrilled with is their web interface. Other than that, I
can't complain.

Ed

On Sep 26, 8:46*pm, Ed <e... (AT) horizonhcm (DOT) com> wrote:
Well, at least that means it is being actively developed, so I will
still put it in that category. I gather it is being actively marketed
in the UK more so than in the US. Do you know if it is marketed by
both Via Systems and EDP? I'm not sure to what extent I should include
marketing/sales organizations, but in the case of jBASE it makes sense
to do so. It looks like EDP does market and sell it, so that Via is
like many other 3rd parties rather than being THE marketing arm. I'm
just trying to figure out if it is reflected properly on the poster
now -- any opinions on that? Thanks. --dawn

I think you will find that EDP bought out VIA Systems many years
ago ...

dawn wrote:
Dawn, you'll never get a real answer to a survey like that. Numbers
that we get in terms of sales or prospects are always tainted. On one
hand these companies will tell you they're doing great business, with
a lot more on the horizon that they can't talk about. On the other
hand, years will go by when they're not advertising significant sales
or losses.

If a company actually publishes how many sites and seats they have,
another company will trample their marketing parade with claims of
larger numbers. So it's suicide to make claims in that regard.

If a company publishes numbers that don't meet market expectations,
there will be competitive claims of "they're not doing so good",
"they've lost business", etc. Again, suicide.


None of these companies have anything substantive to gain by
publishing numbers for use within the MV community - which is a shame
because without any real data the entire market looks to the
mainstream like it's "not doing so good".

If you want to have a little fun, just publish a pie chart with random
numbers assigned to each MV provider. Then let the companies complain
about inaccuracies, and argue amongst one another about which numbers
aren't right.

Here's an example:
Rocket has 88% of the business of the entire MV market
TigerLogic has 3%
jBase has 2%
QM has 1%
Northgate has 1%
InterSystems has 1%
All others combined have less than 4%

OK ladies and gents. If you don't like the numbers, give us something
better.

UniVision has never been on my radar. Google for UniVision and you
get a spanish TV network with virtually zero chatter about databases.
That about sums up their positioning.

T

Hey, if you want to talk about pie charts, see my recent blogs.
remove.pleaseNebula-RnD.com/blog

On Sep 27, 4:38*pm, Ross Ferris <ro... (AT) stamina (DOT) com.au> wrote:
Ah, good, that explains that. Thanks. --dawn

On Sep 27, 5:22*pm, Tony Gravagno <nos... (AT) nospam (DOT) invalid> wrote:
Hey Tony, thanks for playing! I was hoping someone might take a SWAG
at it. Of course you are definitely right about companies not being
willing to divulge their numbers.

I think you are right on the money. I'll put those numbers on the next
version of the poster.

Yes, I pointed the graph blog entries out to someone else the other
day. Very nice! --dawn

> remove.pleaseNebula-RnD.com/blog