Actually the ATA standard(s) implement IDE, and all ATA drives are technically IDE. You just proved my point, which is that people somewhat mistakenly use IDE as an analog to parallel ATA, or PATA. I'm just nitpicking, but that is the correct way to use the terminology. PATA (or just old "ATA") and SATA are both subsets of IDE technology, so just saying "an IDE drive" is imprecise.
Well if we are nitpicking then technically it's the IDE that implements the ATA standard, not the other way around.
From the generic name itself IDE, Integrated Drive Electronics, includes every single type of disk drive in the world that has the controller built in. Floppy disk, CD, DVD, tape, scsi, fiber, SAS,USB, firewire, etc...
Which begs the question, why did you only include SATA and PATA when IDE stands for all those? Maybe he meant a fibre-optic attached RAID controller with SAS drives! That is still IDE by your definition.
However, before i digress further, I don't know many people in the world who would consider a SCSI drive to be IDE. Mainly because IDE in the case of hard drives refers to the "IDE standard" and not to the broad defination of the words it is derived from. The "IDE Standard" is another name for the "PATA Standard", but in most cases is shortened down to IDE and PATA.
While SATA standard is based upon the PATA/IDE standard, it technically isn't IDE (in terms of the standard). Just as C++ is based on C but no one would ever ask if you just said C.