Interbase: A Bedtime Story

Alan Frayer, CNE, CNI, CIW CI, Net+, MCP

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Debbie was getting ready to sleep the other night, and it occurred to me that I hadn't told her a bedtime story in a long time.

"Debbie, would you like me to tell you a story before you go to sleep?"

"Not really, Dad. I'm kinda tired," she replied.

"It won't take long," I pleaded, "and I haven't told you a bedtime story in such a long time, I feel negligent."

"But Dad," she complained, "I'm sixteen! You REALLY don't need to tell me a bedtime story!"

"I insist." I sat at the edge of her bed, and with a look of resignation she laid back to try to sleep.

"Once upon a time," I began, "there was a company called Ashton-Tate. This company had firm control over the PC database market. All the other database companies copied Ashton-Tate's dBase, and the computer users knew what they wanted.

"Ashton-Tate was so confident in its hold over the database market that they forgot to check with the computer users from time to time. The programmers became complacent, satisfied with minor changes and fixes. The users became more sophisticated, and wanted more from their databases. When Ashton-Tate wouldn't deliver, they turned to Fox, Nantucket, and eventually Borland, whose marketing skills came close to outweighing their programming skills.

"Ashton-Tate lost their grip over the database market, and it became a free-for-all. There was no longer a unified direction for database development. FoxBase became FoxPro, Clipper Summer '87 became Clipper 5.0, and Paradox became... well, Paradox became Paradox 3.5. Each did things differently, and Ashton-Tate's dBase IV was too little, too late. The King of the Database had fallen; no successor was in line.

"Now, Borland's Paradox was selling well, but it wasn't a dBase-like product, and too many users still wanted dBase-like products. Borland came up with an idea to build a dBase compiler, but Ashton-Tate didn't want to let Borland use the dBase name. Borland did the only thing a corporate giant could do in today's business climate: they bought Ashton-Tate.

"With both the dBase name and the dBase product, Borland gained the opportunity to become the King of the Database. Programmers began struggling to see how they could mix dBase with Paradox. Fox and Nantucket began to worry over the same thing. Databases were beginning to look like they might become unified again, under the Borland banner.

"Then Borland pulled out a project that had been sitting in the Ashton-Tate wings: Interbase. Interbase was a 32-bit Unix and VMS database server that offered support for object-oriented programming and multimedia data types. Interbase was ideal for Borland's Windows database products.

"Just as Borland was about to pull everyone together, they threw in a twist designed to separate the Paradox and dBase products from the competition. Fox looked at Borland, Nantucket looked at Borland, Fox looked at Nantucket, then they all said, 'We've got a better way!' Unification fell by the wayside.

"And the database world has been in chaos ever since."

I looked at Debbie. She was fast asleep. Feeling satisfied with myself, I crept out of her room and closed the door.

I can still tell a decent bedtime story.


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