> The big problem with IB as a commercial product is that commercial

software is driven by economy of scale- the more you sell,

> the smaller the development costs as a fraction of revenue. How can

Borland (or "DevCo") possibly compete in the commercial

> database market (over the long term) with SQL Server? MS sells so many

copies by virtue of the product's first name that they

> make giant mounds of money off it, while keeping the price reasonably

cheap. Last I checked, IB was pretty similar in price -

> and I doubt Borland could charge less and have IB be profitable at all,

with its relatively tiny market share.

A relatively tiny market share does not mean that the actual numbers are
small.

Obviously, I have no idea how much licenses they are selling, but the
statement by itself holds true.

Martijn Tonies
Database Workbench - tool for InterBase, Firebird, MySQL, NexusDB, Oracle &
MS SQL Server
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com
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>But SQL server
> can remain very profitable even with MS spending probably a hundred times

more on its development.

>
> The ONLY way to compete with the kinds of features MS can pile on to SQL

Server, is by being free, or having an even bigger

> market share. DevCo has ZERO chance of becoming bigger than MS or Oracle

or IBM, so what chance does IB have?