Re: [GENERAL] Oracle buys Innobase

On Tuesday 18 October 2005 23:44, Chris Travers wrote:
> Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:
> > With no disrespect to PostgreSQL, MySQL has 100x our downloads and
> > installations...
> >
> > Oracle is simply going after by far the biggest open source database
> > player...
>
> As I said,  Oracle demonstrated in 2000 that they had already singled
> MySQL out for special competitive treatement.  They did this by starting
> to offer db conversion utilities in order to help people migrate from
> MySQL to Oracle.  It is not about technical merit, it is about market
> share.  We could have the best RDBMS in the world but if we never get

wadda ya mean "could"?"  :-) 

> enough users to directly threaten them to the level that MS SQL Server
> or DB2 does, we are not the threat that they are, and we are not worth
> the time and expense that research, competitive strategizing, etc. would
> incur.  Therefore, I suspect that we are sort of on the back burner
> competitive strategy wise.  I.e. competition is on a project-by-project
> basis, and not coordinated as of yet.
>
> There are some things on the horizon that could change this quite
> quickly, however:
>
> 1)  Sun is talking about packaging PostgreSQL and distributing it with
> Solaris.  This would bring us directly head to head with Oracle in a
> large number of potential installations.
>
> 2)  EnterpriseDB's efforts and awards may have attracted some
> attention.  This may reinforce the idea that we are a threat.
>
> If this is the case, I bet that Oracle is probably pressuring Sun not to
> distribute PostgreSQL, and if they do anyway, we need to be concerned
> about the beginning of a high-level coordinated strategy targetting us
> specifically.  IMO, it is likely to start with one of two things:
>
> 1)  PostgreSQL to Oracle database conversion utilities released by
> Oracle (unlikely given extensible languages in PostgreSQL).

they need to "reverse" engineer enterprisedb :-)

> 2)  Some sort of FUD campaign on the part of Oracle directed
> specifically at us and not tied to any specific project (fairly likely).
>

look for pointers to lack of benchmarks, patent issues, and great bridge... 
those seem to be the most common rehash of fud. 

-- 
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL