About 1984 the tom-toms started beating very loudly for SQL. The message was conveyed
first by hardware vendors (iron mongers) in search of a data manager. In brief the message said
‘‘IBM will make a big deal of DB 2 and SQL. I want to be compatible with IBM.’’ A similar
message was conveyed by so-called value-added resellers (VARS) who said ‘‘I want application
code that I write to run both on your data manager and on DB 2’’. Discussions with VARS or iron
mongers concerning exactly what they meant by SQL and exactly what they wanted in terms of
compatibility usually evoked an answer of ‘‘I don’t know’’. Hence the early tom-toms were
being beaten by people who were not exactly sure of what they wanted.
Later, the tom-tom pounding was picked up by representatives of large users of data base
services. Usually, the message they delivered was: