Santa Clara, California-based Software Publishing Corp reckons its Superbase Windows-based database product already does all that Microsoft Corp’s new Access package does (CI No 2,053) and more. Given that Superbase costs over twice as much – around ?600 – this is perhaps to be expected. Still, the system can be used with FoxPro and Oracle – which are promised next year for Access; offers configurable menus which Access does not; and has 15 image file formats compared with Access’s two, to name a few of its advantages, Software Publishing says. The company, which has been in the market with Superbase for three years and which boasts 1m customers worldwide including 1,000 devlopers, reckons that Microsft’s two tier marketing strategy is wrong too. It says that customers want a single user and development environment like Superbase, rather than separate versions for each. Its newly announced Superbase Version 2.0 (CI No 2,001) fits the bill, it says, by being even easier for novices to use and more powerful for developers than the currrently shipping Version 1.3. It claims to have an 80% share in a growing market. Still, it can hardly ignore a challenge from a giant like Microsoft, which is rapidly assuming the mantle of unbeatable market dominator that was worn by IBM Corp until the middle of the 1980s.
