Revenge of the Dozen

Database P&D's Web site crackles with readers' DB Dozen nominations Revenge of the Dozen

Every year, for four years running, Database Programming & Design has produced an extra issue called "The Database Industry in Focus." Subscribers should have received this issue in December; the entire text is now on our Web site. This special edition is devoted to the very subjective notion of influence. The nucleus of the Focus issue is the Database Dozen, an editor's choice of the "most influential" vendors in the database industry. To research and write this 12,000-word article, I must live the life of a studious monk, often in anonymous hotels and motels across the country. My concentration is broken only by chats with the housekeeping service--and such random noises as the coughing man next door, the endless unintelligible conversations in the hall, or the faint metallic tapping of a radiator. I resist the impulse to turn on Sally Jessie Raphael, Jenny Jones, or Days of Our Lives.
      Congratulations once again to this year's Dozen: IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, EMC, NCR, SAS Institute, Rational Software, Computer Associates, Business Objects, and Informix Software. No one factor put these vendors in the Dozen: It was a compendium of factors, including important product releases; breakthrough technology; clear-sighted strategies in tune with what we perceive as key trends in database information systems; financial success; and sheer market-moving force.
      Editor's choice selections are always controversial. Last fall, thanks to a brainstorm by our dear-departed sales manager Jody Homelsky, we opened up our Web site to readers' selections for the Dozen. Dubbed "Readers' Revenge," it certainly did enable members of our Database P&D community to voice their extreme disagreement with last year's choices. As expected, some vendors tried to stuff the ballot box by nominating themselves as many times as possible. All in all, however, the response was terrific and we received many interesting selections.
      Which companies did our Web-enabled readers choose? The top five were Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, Sybase, and Informix; these appeared on nearly everyone's list, with the first three most prominent. But we also received nominations for Okieworld, Stealth 2000, and other companies we admittedly overlooked in our research. Intel Corp. and Apple Computer made several lists; Intel makes sense, but Apple? Other companies receiving a large number of votes were Computer Associates, NCR, and Sun, all of which made this year's Dozen. Logic Works and Red Brick, which placed in our second dozen "Companies on the Rise," were also popular with Web voters.
      What makes the dozen selections interesting is to view a complete dozen as a portrait of what's important in the industry. Doug Durham of Valmont Industries Inc. offered a very smart selection that included Intersolv, SAP, Borland, Seagate, and Brio Technology to go with the top five plus CA and Logic Works. Given its prominence in enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications, SAP probably should have been on our list. Bob Griffith of the University of Chicago selected Object Design, Netscape Communications, and Digital Equipment Corp. With its Alpha-based servers and very large memory technology, Digital does exert influence. And certainly, Netscape is a potential force as browsers become popular for intranet data access to warehouses.
      Warehouse, data mart, and DSS vendors were prominent on many lists. From Switzerland, we heard from Roman Mueller, who provided an interesting list that included Gentia, Information Advantage, Prism Solutions, Cognos, Evolutionary Technologies, Platinum Technology, HyperParallel, and Brio to go with our shared choices of NCR, SAS, Microsoft, and Business Objects. Note that Roman's list did not include the standard RDBMS choices. Frank McClelland of Bayer Corp. offered a rather enigmatic list that included Marathon, Essex, Square D, Miller's Pharmacy, and Toys "R" Us; I can't say I've heard of the first four, but Toys "R" Us is certainly prominent in my mind as I write this (just before the holidays, with small children at home waiting for Santa).
      In fact, the most glaring omission from the Dozen is user organizations. Keep an eye on our Web site; in 1998, we will be doing a users' version of the Database Dozen. We will also post a summary of results from this year's Reader's Revenge. Our thanks to everyone for their interesting nominations!