Thanks to Rich for the tip about Sybase and Extended Systems. The Idaho Statesman is reporting that Extended Systems may lose 20 jobs if it's sold. They are planning to keep 160 of the 180 employees working in the Boise, Idaho office.
Usually mergers of competitors are good for the share holders, but not anyone else. The people who loose their jobs of course is unfortunate. Since Extended Systems is local I know a few people who work there, and I wish them the best. Also the market place is a looser. Many times I have seen excellent products retired because they were competing with a product of the parent company. Sometimes there will be some statement that the features were integrated into the other product, but I rarely find this to be the case.
We actually had a couple Extended System representatives out to a recent meeting to show us their Advantage Database. That is a very impressive product. While Sybase (who is also planning to come make a presentation at our group next month) also has some nice databases I would certainly hate to see Advantage disappear. Especially their innovative .NET DataReader that provides bidirectional data access (a very cool feature) and their free single user licensing of Advantage.
Extended Systems is also a great supporter of Delphi and the Delphi community. Sybase has made a good showing as well in this regard, but not as strong as Extended Systems. Again it would be unfortunate for the community to loose one of its strong supporters, even if it is being absorbed by another supporter.
As an optimist I hope this works for the best. Maybe the 20 that are offered to leave will take the opportunity to move their life in a new and better direction. I know that when I was laid off from my job a few years ago it turned out to be a huge blessing and my life has been much better since then. And here is hoping that Sybase will double their support of the Delphi community maintain and improve the Advantage database product.
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