Pervasive.SQL V8 Product Information

Goldstar Software will continue to provide services for and to support this product release for as long as we can, and will sell licenses only while we still have them in stock. Of course, we do urge all Pervasive.SQL V8 users to begin migration plans to a newer version.

Pervasive.SQL V8 builds on the success of Pervasive.SQL 2000i by providing some great new features. Here's a short list:

• Improved Btrieve Performance: The combination of improved server-side code and a new workstation-side caching engine gives new life to older Btrieve applications! Most applications will seem some performance gains. However, applications which normally experience some performance drag from client/server engines will see a HUGE performance gain with the new caching engine! I've actually witnessed 4x performance gains in one customer application, but Pervasive has estimated 20%, which seems about right.
• Improved SQL Performance: Pervasive Software developers reworked portions of the SQL optimizer to improve performance for many types of queries. The net result should be better performance overall for most users!
• New SQL Syntax: They even added some neat new features missing from Pervasive.SQL 2000, such as the TOP and ROWCOUNT features, TIME ZONE support, DECIMALSEPARATORCOMMA support for European numeric formats, SQL_TIMEOUT support, and the ability to put DDL in stored procedures. This last one alone is worth the upgrade for some developers!
• No More Workstation Engine: The death of an engine is a feature? In this case, YES! The old single-user WSE is now history, only the WorkGroup Engine (WGE) is available. This allows for cheaper pricing than the Pervasive.SQL 2000i WGE and should result in cost savings for everyone!
• New File Format: An optional change, the new 8.x file format can also provide more performance gains. However, I'd personally wait until I get some tools to deal with them, should they ever get corrupted.
• Simpler Configuration: Even more of the configuration settings are disappearing as the engine self-tunes the memory requirements. This just makes it easier for end-users to do the initial setup!
• Debug Requesters: While not exactly new, for the first time, Pervasive plans to ship the Debug Requesters with the engine. Should make for some interesting times when people start to "play".
• Simpler Licensing: Instead of the 33-byte UCMGR.KEY file, licensing is now accomplished by 24-character ASCII codes, a la Microsoft. The jury is still out on which is easier, but personally I think applying the file took far less time than typing those lengthy codes...

• Price: What, you expected it to be free? This is a paid upgrade, but one which should be well worth the money, IMHO.
• Lack of Windows 95 Support: You knew it would come -- Microsoft already killed this OS -- and now Pervasive stops supporting it as well. It might work, but they won't help you if it doesn't.
• Increased Prices on Unlimited Engines: Whereas previous engines became "Unlimited" at 200 licensed users, the new P8 engine has license counts at 250, 500, and Unlimited users, with higher prices for each. Users with less than 250 users won't notice the change, but sites with over 250 (and especially over 500) users will definitely notice the price increases.

Unlike with the upgrade from Pervasive.SQL 7 to Pervasive.SQL 2000i, this upgrade is more evolutionary in nature. In fact, we cannot think of ANY reason to date why a user would not be able to immediately upgrade to Pervasive.SQL 8. While this will probably scuttle the PSQL2000i sales, the good news is that end users and developers won't have any reasons to hold back and NOT upgrade, so everybody wins!

Pricing can be found on our Pervasive.SQL V8 price list, or you can BUY IT NOW from our on-line store. If you want to try it out before you buy it (and who doesn't?), or if you just need to replace a broken or missing installation CDROM, you can get an evaluation download to get started with the product for 30 days. Of course, we also recommend making sure that you meet the Pervasive.SQL V8 Pre-Requisites list on your network before attempting this.

If you have additional questions about the product, please contact us!