> > Perhaps being on the leading edge is a negative for many people.
>
> People in the US are very concerned about anything new - unless
> they're more interested in having their names in magazine articles
> than keeping their jobs. We're beginning to see new customers
> here - for a long time most US IBPhoenix customers came with us
> from Borland in 2000. They still come from Borland (generally) but
> we are beginning to see new faces.

I see. Janus customers are nearly all newcomers, with a good chunk
being based in the US. When switching from Interbase to Firebird, the
main differentiator was (is?) open source & support quality. Perhaps
for other switches the motivation is different. I guess it also
depends on project size.

One thing we have coming our way is that increasingly Interbase will
be seen as a dead-end fork and Firebird as the future-proof main
trunk. That should change risk perceptions.

> My concern there is the perception that "free" support (how ever
> friendly) is worth what you pay for it - or less - and that paying
> a commercial company for support on products they sell is a better
> guarantee of success. You and I know that's not true, but it is
> widely believed. Our message needs to address the question of "if
> there's a problem, where do I go?"

Yup: Forrester concluded that there was no commercial support, so
apparently we are not credible. IBPhoenix, Janus, H-K, etc. etc.
apparently do not count, even though each one probably has more
resource on FB than Borland has on IB.

> Almost all verticals want a way to demo their product without
> requiring a license for the underlying data storage engine.
> Firebird is a natural for that slot, particularly in its embedded
> configuration.

True again. This is what sells Fyracle.

Paul