A mobile database by any other name...

Comments

# Angel said on October 31, 2006 9:04 PM:

Here is a hint:

http://www.sybase.com/products/mobilesolutions/sqlanywhere

# Frans Bouma said on November 1, 2006 2:07 AM:

Angel: still, MS knew that for a LOOOOONG time, as SqlAnywhere is a product that's available for a while now. So renaming it to SqlEverywhere would create friction. I don't think SqlCE is a good name, unless it's called SqlCE 4.0. Otherwise it will cause problems with versioning...

# Angel said on November 1, 2006 12:28 PM:

Frans, I agree with both your points. We are finding that the name change of MSDE to Sql Express has been tremendously beneficial in terms of branding, the last thing I would like to see is another name snafu with this. SQLCe is really a great database to have in your pc and I hope it gets the recognition it deserves. My guess here is that more than "friction" was threatened here.

# Bill said on November 1, 2006 8:52 PM:

Angel: I appreciate your point but the whole thing has been a fiasco. Here's my issues. First off, SqlCE is viewed as a mobile pda database and short of a few gazillion dollars in branding, that won't change. The notion that they coulnd't have stuck with Everywhere b/c somehow they were bound to Sql Mobile and that Everywhere was never intended to be a release name really strains credibility. They dumped all this effort into Sql Mobile , then rebranded it Sql Everywhere, got people excited about it, and when people hear it's CE again, I'm absolutely certain the wind is coming out of the sales. I do presentations on this all the time and getting people to not fall asleep during SqlCE presentations was impossible. Hell getting them to show up was a chore. Sql Mobile had the same effect. But something about the name Sql Everywhere, and the fact it ran on the desktop, you could use the SqlCeResultset etc really got a lot of enthusiasm. Last weekend I had over 20 people in a presentation at code camp. The last code camp I did had a request for a second presentation. So my 'real' reason for complaining is that I've been running around the Southeast babbbling about how great Everywhere is, showing people how it's the perfect solution for single user scenarios, getting some folks excited, and now it's back to CE and I know interest is going to sink. I was going to rant on this a little but I stopped b/c having seen what it takes to push a release out the door, I know it's real easy for some goofball like me with no accountability to Monday morning QB a release or product name change. Everyone I know at Microsoft that handles releases is amazing b/c I know I'd crack under that pressure. It's a job where people are going ot hate you no matter what you do and the maximum potential for praise pales in comparison to the derision you get comparitively if things go wrong. I know we can be a whiny bunch, me in particular. But I think the problem is that this whole thing smacks of being Marketing driven and while I have the utmost respect for Steve, he pulled a John Kerry with that explanation. I've gotten Pinged all day with people cracking jokes about it. The whole notion that the dll's need to be named System.Data.Sqleverywhere or that developers would get confused by the name of the dll being different from the namespace is *a* reason, but it's not worth the price of admission. I mean, CF developers have had to live through P/Invoke and Unsafe code for 5 years now, so figuring out which dll to use is pretty simple. Admittedly there's a consistency issue for new developers, but all in all I've heard a lot of heckling over Steve's reasons. had I not seen what those poor PM's go through to put out a release, I'd probably be one of the hecklers, but I know that this decision wasn't made lightly and that the 'real' reasons probably aren't things that can or should be readily discussed publicly.

# Andy said on November 2, 2006 1:17 PM:

Who cares what they call it. If it works for what you want to get done then use it. If it doesn't use something else. I largely ignore branding anyway so what it's called makes about zip point sh!t difference to me. It kind of reminds me of some open source projects I have been on that when they got big they had to decide on a logo. Those projects wasted weeks on deciding on Logo's and branding when they could have been fixing bugs and adding improvments. At least MSFT has whole departments set up to handle the branding stuff so developers can do their jobs and not have to worry about it.