> Well remember, that we had allready commited resource to this, before we

were

> told that the original verbal agreement came to nothing.

From what I understand, and I surely could be mistaken, the verbal exchanges
were exploratory, not committal. For whatever reason it was deemed unwise to
commit to EasySoft under the terms and timeframe they presented. But when
NewCo shifted to do it themselves EasySoft didn't want to see a market
segment gobbled up so they quickly tried to get something to show to keep
their foot in the door. I'm glad they are deciding to commit efforts to this
because the InterBase market can only be benefited by additional ODBC
drivers.

> The driver that was
> over 75% finished at this point, so the extra commitment is not that great

for

> us.

Great!

> The question is do we continue commiting or cur our losses, I for one

would

> be sorry to see that happen having commited a lot of personal time and

effort

> on this driver, and Easysoft management have cut me the slack to do this,

its a

> gamble, we shall see.

If you decide to cut your losses then perhaps you could just open source
what you have to this point?

> A lot depends on
>
> 1. How the driver is recieved,

If it is a good driver count on it being received with great excitement and
appreciation. This is an essential piece to the InterBase puzzle.

> 2. How many people actually want a ODBC driver

How many people want to use a CASE tool with IB6? That alone ought to be
enough to convince...

> 3. How it stacks against the IBPheonix driver.

I don't think this matters that much. Most people will end up looking
seriously at both and would even be willing to support both to ensure that
they will always have at least one to use. There have been two interbase
ODBC drivers in the past and it wasn't uncommon for one thing to work in one
and not the other and then with another task have it go the other way. If
there weren't two to choose from, half of my tasks would have been
impossible!

> So far...
>
> 1. It seems to have been working well, (if you know otherwise please tell

me)

For now I am only involved in production endeavors and our ODBC stuff is all
in place. We won't be using IB6 in production for a while, at least until
after the presidential election is completed...

> 2. This remains to be seen.

Approaching markets this way is pretty self defeating. If people don't
recognize a commitment to a market, regardless, then they will shy away. If
you truly commit, people will trust as long as your company has a good
reputation for honoring their word.

> 3. Again time will tell, I havn't seen any comments about the other

driver, but

> we shall see. Remember its one thing to know InterBase well, but its

another to

> have the same understanding of ODBC, and more to the point how apps use

ODBC.

To this point I have never seen an ODBC driver that reflected anyone was
expert level with InterBase and/or ODBC drivers although you would have
expected otherwise. I have no reason to doubt that Jim Starkey couldn't fill
the job at implementing an ODBC driver, but then again, I don't know his
ODBC credentials.

Thanks for commenting on this and feel free to correct or clarify anything I
have surmised.

FWIW,
Jason Wharton
CPS - Mesa AZ
http://www.ibobjects.com