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After nearly a year's delay, Oracle Corp. last week unveiled upgrades to its computer-aided software engineering (CASE) products. Users of Oracle's latest database, Oracle 7, have gone without key CASE tools from the vendor that take advantage of triggers, stored procedures and other functions new in Oracle 7.
A directive from Oracle Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison a year ago to put all future development tools on Windows, combined with the departures of high-level executives from the UK-based CASE group, contributed to the delay, according to users and Oracle insiders.
"Unix tools were put on hold while Windows tools were developed," acknowledged Richard Barker, former senior vice president at the CASE unit.
Oracle had ignored desktop developers who worked with Windows, so mandating that new tools be put on Windows "was a sound marketing decision...but it did cause delays," Barker said. He left Oracle in February after a decade of service for a post at OpenVision, a systems management firm also in England.
Barker joined Geoff Squire, former head of international operations at Oracle's UK office, who went to OpenVision in January. Ian Fisher was...