I'm posting this as a favor to Jay Amstrong
Karl,
Thanks for responding. This is already a long message, so I'll try to
keep it short.
I've been wrong before and, if that's the case now, then please forgive
me. Lest anyone think I'm out to bash Orion, please refer to my vigorous
and lengthy defense of Orion (e.g., "Subject: Re: SV: Not authorized to
view this page" 16Feb2001).
There have been several threads on orion-interest about lack of response
from Evermind/Ironflare. Topics like "Anyone heard from evermind?" didn't
appear without reason. Your response to that particular thread explained
the transition from Evermind to Ironflare, which, in turn, spawned many
concerns about the future of Orion (pricing, etc). Still, there were other
subsequent threads about lack of response, especially regarding bug fixes.
Several weeks ago, I notified you directly of an unauthorized production
user. There was very little interest. In fact, there has been no follow
up to let me know whether or not anyone even verified it. I assumed that
there was so little interest in a few $1,500 production licenses because
Ironflare was too busy trying to sign with Oracle.
I also recently requested comments from you and Magnus for a live web
presentation I am doing next week about J2EE on a budget. Again, no response.
Since we don't know the details of the deal with Oracle, it's hard for me
to comment on the value of the deal. What we do know is that other J2EE
products (e.g., WebLogic, WebSphere, IPlanet, etc) sell for upwards of
$10,000 per CPU.
In the past, on this site, I have stated that I hope you an Magnus become
millionaires. I'm not asking now, nor will I ever ask, how many licenses
Ironflare has sold or the specifics of the contract with Oracle. That's
your business. But I do know what Oracle's competitors charge, and
Ironflare's possible revenue from this is theoretically enormous. Again,
I'm happy for you.
The reaction I've gotten on this agreement from other
Orion users is that they're very happy about it, and
You may wish to consider that many Orion users are trying to learn J2EE,
have absolutely no experience with big business, etc are fearful of being
banned from this and the Orion site.
In a sense, I'm happy, too. Like many users, I am concerned about the
future of Orion. I doubt Ironflare has an army of lawyers or a mountain of
cash -- Oracle does. It may be increasingly difficult to allow Orion to be
free for development, because Oracle's long-term business strategy is
probably not to allow that. There is no getting around the fact that
comments from users to this site have helped refine a product that is now
directly benefitting a Fortune 50 company.
I am definitely happy for you and Magnus. I've gained a lot more from
Orion than I've given.
I am somewhat encouraged by your comments, though still doubtful about the
future. Maybe I'm just too cynical. Maybe I've dealt with too many big
companies.
Jay
--
Best regards,
Rafael mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
