On Friday 18 April 2003 06:05, Lester Caine wrote:

Hi,

> *I* am just approaching the end of a SIX MONTH push to get
> Firebird accepted as a serious alternative to SQLServer for
> a multi-million pound contract. I don't need this sort of
> agro just now!

Just to add to this...

I have spent the last 18 months working hard, sometimes putting my job on the
line, to get a product of ours that uses Firebird into a few of the UK's
biggest organisations, including National and Local Government. The user
base of our product (and therefore Firebird) is approaching 6 figures, and we
hope to at least double that by the end of the year.

There hardest job was that although people did not doubt Firebirds
suitability, statbility etc., it wasn't a "Oracle" or "IBM" etc., and few
have heard of it. Over the last 18 months most of the organisations in
questions' IT departments have started to become familier with the name
'Firebird', what it is, and what it does, and in order to increase the
penitration of our product we need to continue to increase the 'Brand
awareness' of Firebird (and therefore our product)

What worries me is that this situationn with the Mozilla browser, can at best
make this "Brand awareness" harder work. This will be especially true in the
local/national Government organisations, as a lot of them are activly
moving/considering replacing there current Windows desktops with Linux ones,
and where the Mozilla browser would be on the list of 'browsers'

Phil