Re: [pgsql-advocacy] Oracle buys Innobase

Scott Marlowe wrote:

>I'd bet they read plenty, but don't necessarily understand a lot,
>judging by their pitiful fud campaign when Afilias proposed using
>postgresql as a database behind .org.  They tried to say PostgreSQL
>didn't support transactions.  So, while we may be on their screens, and
>I'm sure some marketeer there tries to keep up with some of the traffic
>here, the actual comprehension seems pretty low judging by their past
>statements.
>
>Actually, I kinda hope it stays that way.
>  
>
Ok.  I should have said "serious target."  MySQL has been a serious 
target for a number of years.  I think we are still the unknown bugaboo 
to them.

I.e. I see no evidence that Oracle is taking the PostgreSQL threat 
seriously, and the FUD campaign is more evidence that they don't (there 
are plenty of areas where Oracle has an edge over PostgreSQL-- the idea 
that "PostgreSQL doesn't support transactions" can only indicate that 
this was a cursory and hasty attack and maybe even a wakeup call for 
them, or maybe they got us mixed up with MySQL w/MyISAM).  The real 
question is whether after the .org campaign occurred, we are now a 
higher-profile target that is taken more seriously.  Personally, I would 
doubt it for reasons mentioned below.

The thing is, we may be a head-to-head competitor with Oracle in many 
areas, but we are pretty minor compared to Sybase, Microsoft, and IBM at 
the moment.   I.e. while we are an emerging threat, Oracle has plenty of 
clear and present threats to its  market share to deal with.  Therefore, 
I am willing to bet that we are probably a distant target, somewhere 
after Ingress II and maybe even Firebird/Interbase.  This is based on 
the assumption that in any significantly large corporation, there will 
be a lot of legacy competitive effort and that the rampup time to look 
at new threats is really pretty large.  I.e. at Microsoft when I left 
(2003), Java and Sun were still higher competitive priorities than Linux 
(and still very much in a middle-phase).  From what I have read after 
leaving, I think that Microsoft's strategy is still in an opening phase 
mostly consisting of GetTheFUD and internal product research.

MySQL is different.  They established a large user base early on, and 
people have a tendency (wrongly) to think of them as The Open Source 
RDBMS.  So I am willing to be that Oracle has been ramping up a 
competitive strategy against them for at least five years (they showed a 
clear competitive strategy against them as early as 2000).  The fact 
that they are an easier target complicates matters for them, but I think 
that this is more of a transition to an end-game strategy by Oracle than 
anything else.

I will be worried if and when Oracle demonstrates any intelligent 
competitive strategy against us.  A poorly orchestrated and hasty FUD 
campaign does not qualify.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
Metatron Technology Consulting