As the industry looks for salvation from saturation, the Feds come calling

Tilting at Washington

Thanks to the advance work necessary to print and distribute a magazine, I am writing this column on New Year's Eve. Soon, my neighbor up the hill will end my pursuit of one last holiday slumber with a deafening cannonade--from a real cannon, no less! The street out front will become a parade of pot and pan pounders.
      Once you have this edition in your hands, of course, 1998 will be out of the starting gates. Pushing off at full strength, the information industry will disappear into a cloud of dust. What does the course look like up ahead? Based on their recent earnings, the road could be rocky for Oracle and Sybase. Both companies blamed much of their difficulties on the Asia Pacific economic problems, which are sure to continue. As a large, diverse company, Oracle should be able to weather such storms; Sybase is more vulnerable. And with Informix Software also struggling, many observers have begun to wonder whether the database software market is finally saturated.
      Huge growth in new licenses is probably a thing of the past. Current relational database technology is part of the established portfolio of most U.S. corporations, which is why the vendors are so dependent on worldwide revenue for profit growth. Still, I find it hard to believe that companies have exploited the full potential of their data resources. The market for data warehouse and data mart solutions is strong; it should become even stronger once Internet and intranet browser interfaces become the standard means of access. Currently, tough data extract, load, and cleansing problems constrain further growth. But if data transformation standards and technologies mature quickly, companies could become more aggressive in deploying new database servers.
      Saturation may be the case for mainstream database applications, but there's plenty of activity on the frontier. Data mining, software agents, and intelligent search engines could develop into the foundation for a new generation of database software. New companies could emerge to challenge the establishment. While the major RDBMS vendors moved deftly to acquire products that effectively neutralized the potential of an upstart like Red Brick Systems, for example, each is also struggling to support, market, and sell a diverse group of products. "Object/ relational" blunted the marketing assault from object database vendors, but the battle for technical supremacy is still wide open.
      What about Microsoft? In 1997, Bill Gates found himself staring at a new virtual painting on his wall: "Washington Crosses the Internet." It was only a matter of time before the full weight of the Washington, D.C. establishment--the Congress, regulators, lobbyists, activists, and the media--decided to crash the high-tech party. Microsoft is the primary target, but lest its detractors get too comfortable, the entire industry is in Washington's field of vision. Computer products and services form America's most dynamic business, generating a massive chunk of the gross national "product." Technology advances are putting established institutions--particularly the telecommunications giants--on notice that change is coming. The government's tax apparatus is being challenged by global electronic commerce. And Washington egos are a little jealous; don't think Bill Clinton didn't notice that Time magazine's Man of the Year was Intel's Andy Grove.
      How much will legal distractions affect Microsoft's performance and product delivery? Database Programming & Design readers will be watching to see if the company's Windows NT 5.0 is postponed further, thereby stalling Microsoft's enterprise thrust. If Microsoft is forced by the Justice Department to rewrite the next version of Windows, which of its competitors will most successfully fill the product vacuum? Larry Ellison's network computers?
      Washington is also the nexus of activism concerning the right to privacy in our modern age of big databases and liberal information exchange. It could become a major political issue by 2000. In 1997, the American Civil Liberties Union launched its "Take Back Your Data" campaign, encouraging members to pressure elected officials to act regarding data privacy. Designers and developers of decision support systems can no longer afford to ignore what's going on in the political realm regarding privacy.
      These are just a few of the issues that should make 1998 an interesting year for the data professional. We're certainly looking forward to covering it.