Oracle fuels furore over MS SQL Server claims

Robert Bruce, Windows NT database marketing manager at Oracle, said it was too early to make claims about product uptake after Microsoft had boasted at the DB Expo show in New York that it had 100 per cent year on year unit growth and over two million users. "The [NT database] market is relatively young and you can cut the numbers and way you like. I've been through Microsoft's numbers and can make mine look better than theirs because Oracle sales on NT have increased more than 200 per cent year on year. They are playing a statistics game."

Bruce also hit out at Microsoft's pricing low to gain market share and claims that SQL Server offers better price-performance than the competition. "Microsoft has been doing all sorts of things with pricing and bundling but people will still choose. It's not about bundling, that's immaterial; it's about having the richest set of third-party applications so that companies can run their businesses. I want to break down this orthodoxy that the right database comes from the operating system vendor. The right database is the best one. To say their price performance is better is pure spin doctoring."