David McGoveran is a consultant, researcher, lecturer, and industry analyst to the software industry; author of numerous books and articles in the fields of relational databases, transaction processing, business intelligence, business process management, mathematics, and physics; and an inventor. He assesses software opportunities and risks for vendors, venture capitalists, and other investors; and occasionally serves as an expert in software intellectual property litigation.
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David McGoveran majored in physics and mathematics, and minored in cognition and communication the University of Chicago; followed by graduate studies in physics and psycholinguistics at the University of Chicago and then Stanford University from 1976 to 1979. Prior to founding the consulting firm of Alternative Technologies [1] (1976) under the mentoring of H. Dean Brown and Cuthbert Hurd, he was employed by the Enrico Fermi Institute, Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research at NASA (1973–1974), Dow Chemical Research (1974), and University of Chicago Hospitals and Clinics (1975–1976). He worked at SRI International (1976–1979), his first consulting client. Prior to 1981, he taught electronics engineering in the Professional Engineering Institute at Menlo College and was director of the Computer Science and Business Departments at Condie College, developing the school’s bachelor program in computer science.
His software engineering contributions include collaborative conferencing system (1978); multi-tier relational CIM (computer integrated manufacturing) system (Fasttrack, 1982); relational access manager (1984–89); international funds transfer (1984); trading systems databases (1986–91); OLCP requirements (1986); an object-relational portfolio management (see investment management) (1986–89); first Sybase/SQL Server PC client (1987); client-server API requirements (1988); object-relational API requirements (1990); query optimizer requirements (1990); first middleware market analysis (1991); Database Connectivity Benchmark (see computing) (1993); numerous high availability and scalable systems (1994–96); and designed BPMS products and established the BPM category (1998–2000) with HP and IBM. As a consultant on databases, transaction processing, business process management, software engineering, and the software market, McGoveran has applied his work in many fields for clients such as AT&T, Blue Cross, Digital Equipment, HP, IBM, Microsoft, MCI-Worldcom (see MCI Inc.), Oracle Corporation, and many others. He has chaired various professional conferences (1975–2001).
Work on applications of mathematical logic (paradoxes, quantum logic, linguistic logic—see computational semantics), schizophrenia, and database logic) has pervaded McGoveran’s career (1971–present). He worked with H. Pierre Noyes (1986–1992) in the Theory Group at SLAC (Stanford University), making contributions to the discrete mathematical foundations of physics (e.g. bit-string physics), and was invited to be Visiting Scholar for those years.
With Christopher J. Date, he developed the Principle of Orthogonal Design (POOD) and general algorithms found in The Third Manifesto (Christopher J. Date, Hugh Darwen) for updating virtual relations (e.g., view (database)). His work on logic applied to relational databases and on design without “nulls” (see null (SQL)) (1993) has been republished several times. Some of his work is discussed at Database Debunkings. Work on adaptive transaction models and a new data model is ongoing.
He co-founded Database Associates (now known as Intelligent Business Strategies) with Colin White, Richard Finkelstein, and Paul Winsberg (1990). From 1989-1996 he wrote and published (initially with Colin White) the Database Product Evaluation Reports. He founded the 60 member Enterprise Integration Council (1999–2002). He is an Association for Computing Machinery Life Member (1983), American Mathematical Society Life Member (1996), and IEEE Member (1978).
McGoveran was consulting editor for an international research journal (1975-6), associate editor for InfoDB (1990-4) and sr. technical editor of the eAI Journal/Business Integration Journal (1999–2006).
McGoveran’s work appears in books, including:
Listed in Marquis Who’s Who (in the World, in America, of California, the West, and the Computing Industry), Personalities in America, and Men of Achievement; Invited member, IBM Gold DB Consultants, IBM Gold TP Consultants (one of five worldwide in both); invited Industry Analysts Platform; invited international lecturer; recipient Second Annual Alternative Natural Philosopher Award (see ANPA West [13]), 1990; multiple scholarships and awards.
A partial list of David McGoveran’s and Alternative Technologies' Affiliates papers may be found at
and a sampling of publications may be downloaded from