The Return of

Ashton-Tate

by John M. Kinney

“I feel that the reports of my

death are highly exaggerated.” -

Mark Twain, circa 1880.

“We feel that the reports of our

death are highly exaggerated.” -

Ashton-Tate, circa 1990.

While Ashton-Tate probably

never said that, they had a good

right to. Take a short trip with

me back into time.

Dateline: Comdex, Las Vegas,

Nevada, November, 1989. “Ex-

perts declare Dbase is dead.”

Dbase is dead? How did it

happen? What will happen to all

the people out there that make

their living using Dbase? Who

the hell are the “experts.”

The Experts

Let’s take the last question first.

Who are the experts? Among

the list of dignitaries that de-

clared Dbase dead are Adam

Green. Adam Green? Mr.

Dbase? The person that proba-

bly did more to spread the use

Dbase than anyone in history?

How many of us got started by

using his book? How could he

say that Dbase was dead? And

how could he be an expert in a

language that was dead?

In his new newsletter, “The

Green Letter,” Adam Green

states, “ While some of my

comments may have helped fuel

the fire...” and “If! had lied when

dBASE IV 1.0 appeared, as

some at Ashton-Tate did, and

claimed that the product was

fine, nobody would ever listen to

me again.”

Well, I guess some of the experts

did have a reason to say Dbase

was dead. After all, it was a

“terrible” product. Maybe Ash-

ton-Tate should take advice from

Gab wines and release no

software before its time.

But was Dbase really dead?

What about the Fox and Nan-

tucket users? Were they really

out of a job? Have you tried to

sell a Dbase product to upper

management lately? They are

real gun shy.

The Consultants

As consultants, we would still

have a job for years to come.

There are many, many copies of

Dbase out there now that upper

management will not just throw

them away. They will still need

help with the products. Even if

Dbase does die, there is still a

need for database management

products. After all, except for

word processors, most of the

work done on computers is with

database managers.

Right now we have two, good,

solid, database management

products. probably the best, at

least that’s what all the consult-

ants I know say, is FoxPro. And

we also have Clipper, Summer

‘87. (It’s too soon for a verdict on

Clipper 5.0.) So, as consultants,

we are secure right now. But

what about the future? Well, as

for me, I am studying other

products, including Paradox,

Emerald Bay, and OOPS. In

today’s industry, we cannot

afford to know just one product.

How did it happen?

How did Dbase almost die? I feel

there are three reasons Dbase

almost died.

1. Insulting the consultants -

Before Ed Esber took the helms

of Ashton-Tate, there was a

good rapport between the

development community and

Ashton-Tate. But what hap-

pened to Ashton-Tate after Mr.

Ed took over the reigns? He

insulted the consultants. He

acted as if they were not impor-

tant.

Instead of supporting the Dbase

development community, Ed

acted like they did not help

Ashton-Tate any. In fact, his

attitude was that the other

database companies were taking

money from his pockets. But ask

yourself, “Who makes the

software decisions in most small

companies, and several large

companies?” The consultants,

right? How many companies

have you entered where they

asked you for advice on which

software product to use? I know

I have several that have asked

me, including some Fortune 100

companies.

But Mr. Ed didn’t look at it this

way. He refused to support the

development community. So how

could we support dBASE IV, a

product that didn’t work?

2. Insulting the big corporations -

Mr Ed’s feeling about Dbase was

that the big corporations would

buy it just because it was sold by

Ashton-Tate. Big mistake - big,

big mistake.

3. Insulting the competition - the

lawsuit against Fox software -

Instead of saying to Fox, and

other developers of an Xbase

product “Go ahead, use our

product and our file structure.

When you sell product, that just

helps our foundation.” Mr. Ed in

essence said, “It’s mine. You

cannot play with it.”

The advent of third party prod-

ucts for Dbase is probably the

main reason that Dbase has

survived for so long. Take away

the perks, and you are left with

nothing.

Continued on Page 5.

The Newsletter of the Dbase Language Professional Developers Group, October 1990

Page 4