Microsoft Plays Up Open Source

An anonymous reader writes "Recently Microsoft's open source software lab posted PostgreSQL on Windows: A Primer. Postgres is one of the longest running open source databases — it has been around for nearly 11 years. The powerful object-relational database is a direct competitor to other OSS databases, as well as Microsoft's SQL Server 2005. So why is Microsoft promoting it? I get Redmond's interest in boosting anything that runs on Windows as a platform. Is this simply a case of left-hand, right-hand, or is something deeper going on?"

Comments

What's going on here?

[croddy]

Easy. This is targeted at folks who have already decided they want to use Postgres, so they can't be sold on the $xx,000 MSSQL license... but maybe they can still be sold on the $300 OS license! It may be too late to lock them into our database, but it's not too late to lock them into the OS.

Re:What's going on here?

[Nadsat]

Right--This is not news. Nothing is going on here. They are not promoting PostgreSQL at all. There is no real promotion period. I'm not sure how one would come to that conclusion (other than conspiracy fears). The website is simply a set of installation guidelines. A guide to help keep people happy with Windows OS and not leave.

Bullshit summary as usual...

[jkrise]

Postgres is one of the longest running open source databases it has been around for nearly 11 years. The powerful object-relational database is a direct competitor to other OSS databases, as well as Microsoft's SQL Server 2005. So why is Microsoft promoting it?

Firstly, an article on Port 25 is not promotion. It does not count as mainstream media by any stretch.

Remember the ads on TV.. where there's a forklift, lifting up what looks like battery cells... and placing them on top of a huge building... and then you see, SQL Server 2005. If Microsoft replaces those ads with Postgres instead; we can call it promotion... not until then.

Many firms (like mine) would like to use the manpower conversant with and trained on .Net... but use a free (as in beer) database. MySQL is pretty slow with joins, so Postgres with PL/SQL and stored procedures support, may be the answer.

MS is not really so monolithic

[Felonius Thunk]

They're really several companies with distinct businesses under common ownership. Occasionally the strategy tax must be paid (e.g. no IE for linux, no java/lamp for Visual Studio, no Exchange for *nix, MSN using wmv instead of flash), but I would guess most of the inner businesses want to do what their competitors do. It shouldn't be a surprise when they do, just laughable/sad when they don't.

Re:maybe databases aren't profitable?

[ChatHuant]

It is widely reported that Microsoft makes its money on Windows and Office. The other products earn little or even lose money

No, it isn't reported, and no, other products do make (lots of) money. It's very easy to look it up too: the breakdown of earnings per division can be found here. You can see that out of 5 divisions, 3 are operating at a gain, and two at a loss. The Entertainment and Devices Division (XBox) and Online Services Business (MSN) are in the red. Windows, Office and SQL Server are in the black

The business division of interest for this particular article is Server And Tools, makers of SQL Server. Here's what Business Week says about this division here: Microsoft's server and tools business, long Microsoft's lone growth engine, had another blowout period, posting its 18th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. Its SQL server database software posted particularly sharp gains, up 30% for the period. That helped the division's sales jump 17% to $2.9 billion

Am I the only one..

[Shiny One]

.. that didn't miss the most obvious comment.

Embrace. <-- You are here
Extend.
Extinguish.