This is what I think about the FB users list (longish, and possibly boring):

#1. I see little to moderate value of solely "big brass users" lists. Many potential users might be actually put off by databases that are used for "huge" datasets. That may be automatically bringing wrong connotations about hardware requirements, overheads etc.

A place I did some work for (one of the largest automotive related plants in North America) was advised by an Oracle salesman [sic!] them that Oracle 8 would be an overkill for them. As for the numbers, in spite of their importance within the automotive industry, the mentioned business had only 40 computer users, and the database size was a moderate 4 GB of engineering data (almost solely numeric values). That would disqualify them from your list, but had they been FB users, they'd certainly be a nice testimony to any RDBMS they use.

#2. Perhaps it would be valuable to have a list that would include some of the facts about the existing user's scenario, and then sortable/searchable by some of those stats? The reason is that if I need an RDBMS to drive a 5 user database, or a desktop app. then I won't be impressed by Oracle 8 or 10 or DB2. Firebird though will suit me just fine.

A list like that would need to include some of the important fields (number of users, database size, daily/monthly data volume etc), preferably in tabular format It could be of more value to those "shopping" around, as well as for the FB PR. I realize that a similar list it available at IBPhoenix but each entry is mostly a bunch of words where you have to fish for the respective stats. Hard to find the trees in the forest. Sometimes the stats are not even there at all. Not IBPhoenix's fault but the fact remains. Users need to be able to scan each entry very quickly for relevant stats of each entry, and then proceed with reading the blurb, if any. This would be in the spirit of general web page design - you have only so many (actually very few) seconds to attract the user's attention.

That approach would not preclude smaller users, and yet could prove of greater value.

d.


"Carlos H. Cantu" <listas@...> wrote: I didn't say it would be easy :-)

Maybe explaining what is the purpose of such list, as well the
benefits of it for the project may change their mind.

[]s
Carlos

--- In Firebird-general@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Beach"
wrote:

>
> > Yes Ivan, but those lists includes all kind of companies... I want
> > only the "big" ones, or the ones whose names will cause good

impact ;-)

>
> And those are typically the ones who want to keep their mouths shut.
> One of our support customers is a large and I mean large US bank with
> a very well known name running at least 10,000 instances of Firebird.
> However as per the support contract I am not allowed
> to divulge. Apologies.
>
> Another customer is a major Russian exchange - they moved to

Firebird about

> a year ago from InterBase 4. People may know the name, but details -

again

> I cannot divulge without permission and theres more :-)
>
> Regards
> Paul
>

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