dBase - Nobody at the helm - Part II
How many people are currently employed at dBase LLC? Take a guess...
You can read Part I - dBase 2019 Optimized Edition Achilles Heel.
Paradise Lost
There were many reasons why dBase fell.
You can read about this in In Search of Stupidity1 and an article about dBase2.
Innocent Questionnaires
Ashton-Tate’s would send innocent dBase questionnaires to consultants and their customers, and if you, or your customers were stupid to snail-mail respond, Ashton-Tate’s legal department would send cease-and-desist letters - to buy more copies of dBase III or dBase IV or dBase run-time licenses, or face a software audit.
Ashton-Tate mailed out legal cease-and-desist letters to consultants…
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“We Hate You, We Really Hate You: Ed Esber, Ashton-Tate…, in Search of Stupidity.”
In those days, there was no TCP/IP. You had to network via Novell Netware, DOS Lan-Manager and OS/2.
I remembered questionnaires asking about how many computers installed, how many computers use dBase, and if, how many computers had “network-share” (Novell Netware) access to dBase.
If your customer innocently fills in the snail-mail form stating they have 30 computers having “Novell-Shares”, “Lan Manage shares”, put 1 dBase III licenses or 2 dBase IV licenses or 0 dBase run-time licenses. Good luck.
Why wasn’t there Novell dBase server, or WindowsNT dBase server, like Novell Btrieve or Pervasive Server?
I remembered the various companies whom I consulted to, asking for help after getting yearly audits (IMHO, ridiculous). Soon, nobody attended Ashton-Tate’s organized conventions, for fear of getting audited or sued.
Rudderless
dBase LLC released it’s last update in 2019. A brief search at LinkedIn for current employees reveal just 4 employees, the CTO who wants to know, a marketing director, QA and customer service. Devoid of developers, dBase may have met its doom.
In Search of Stupidity book
https://www.amazon.com/Search-Stupidity-Twenty-Marketing-Disasters/dp/1590597214
