Hi,
I'll let Geoff decide if he wants to answer this but with over 20+ years in software and as a former RVP for CA and one of the original team members of Clipper, a few brief thought.
Sparx is MORE important that Rational, not less. Their attitude to a) support and b) upgrading their produce to be current on a regular basis is FAR more than what I can say for Rational. Now, if you mean by "important" that their have a HUGE MARKETING program, INFLATED licensing agreements, and CORPORATE SALES reps all over the place, then okay... they have that. But then again, so did RBase, QuatroPro, Quark, Frameworks, Aston Tate, yadda yadda, and the list could go on. I've found that MEDIOCRE/CRAPPY products can have the best MARKETING arm to overcome the shortcomings of their product. That, too me, doesn't make for good software development, modeling, designing, et cetera. And without the best tools, our software using those tools can not be "the best". The trickly down theory at work I suppose.
I also hope that you are actually comparing ROSE to EA and not the "suite" of Rose to EA. The first is comparable; the last is not. I'm sure you can do a purely _technical_ comparison of the two and draw that conclusion as well amd EA will beat Rose. When PRICE, SUPPORT, FREE UPGRADES FOR A YEAR, and (this last point is CRITICAL) Sparx bend-over-backward approach to listen to the users and offer feature enhancements based on OUR REQUESTS, then there is no compariosn. Rose and the "corporate mentality" behind Rational falls woefully short of the mark. But if you're looking for slick sales people, if your management team wants to be wined-and-dined at free lunches, if they like glossy handouts, and if they think that paying MORE MUST mean it is better, then Rose comes ahead.
As far as capital, number of people, number of sold licences, et cetera... I understand the RATIONAL behind the question but frankly, it's none of anyone's business IMO (no offense being given here... just an opinion). That same thing was done against Nantucket and we just kept sticking to 3 major principles to our product "Bigger, Better, and Faster". At the time, Ashton Tate was huge and we weren't and while in the beginning we weren't "approved software", over time we came to be because of those three principles... and not because of "the numbers". Also, consider the dozens of support people at Rose who can't answer a question; the number of programmers that can't update products (like RequistePro), and the number of sold licences that just sit on the shelf because of awkwardness of use, inability to get the job done, and support that is anything but... then you'll see I hope that the requested numbers don't mean very much.
Finally, unless Sparx is a publicly traded company, those numbers are NOT "public" in nature. Unfortantely some corporate minds think they mean something to the quality of the product or the longevity of the company. Well, those numbers mean nothing. Here's just ONE example. I know a TON of people who gave ASK/Ingres high marks for those types of numbers and now know they didn't mean very much the day after they were sold to CA... and CA has all of those types of numbers you want. In short, it's the Software, Support, and ROI that should mean MORE to the decision making process than anything else. All the capital, number of people, number of sold licenses, clients and et cetera don't mean a hill of beans if the SOFTWARE doesn't do the job. That's the issue, IMO.
Just my .02 worth...
Steve
