Re: Raining Data's Dream World

"GlenB" wrote:

>  I don't think that D3 is seen as an op****tunistic growth path, from a 
>business stance.

In so many words that's my bottom line too when people ask me about D3
and RD.  It's not that the product is dead or dying, it's just that
the company is stagnant and not expressing any interest in growth.  If
that's not true, let them tell us.  I didn't see any announcements at
Spectrum.

>but remember that many sites which run D3 have highly integrated
>applications that don't rely on RainingData to make things happen.

This is one of the paradoxes I've faced for years.  I've been trying
to get D3 users to understand that they can get much more out of the
product as-is, and most aren't in the least interested.  There are
many companies that have done a lot with what's in there and they
don't really want or need much more.  So if RD recognizes this then
what motivation do they have for making enhancements?  They have made
many enhancements over the years that people never use anyway, so
what's the point?  What is it that people actually want if the company
makes changes and people don't sell more seats anyway.  We can't blame
the company for everything (aw c'mon, shure we can!), at some point we
have to wonder what is it that RD hasn't provided in the product that
their client base actually needs?

I guess this comes back to the idea that it's not really the product
but the company.  If the company showed some interest and drive they
would retain more resellers, but it does sort of go both ways.


>> CDP is the noise capital of the MV market, and not really
>> representative of the market as a whole.  It's only one view into the
>> market but proper analysis needs to consider many other views as well.
>>
>
>  That's why we need a developer's association! <G>

Many years ago Doug Dmitru started the RDTA VAR forum and he and I
attracted about 40 members, but there really was a lack of interest.
Actually it seems the conclusion was that there was nothing that
Raining Data needed to do for them, and there hasn't been a post to
the forum in a few years.  The other side of this is that some
resellers even at that time were so fed up with the company that they
didn't have anything more that they wanted to discuss.  A final thing
we confirmed is that business owners who have real business concerns
are not seeking change in CDP-Land or any other forum, they're on the
phone with RD senior management.  So I don't believe a 'developer'
association would be a place to get industry perspective either.



>> Since we're here, I'd agree that InterSystems is probably the best MV
>> DBMS company to do business with for various reasons.
>
>  Call me on my cell tomorrow sometime after noon ET, if you're not busy.

Wednesday.

T