IBM Invests In MySQL/Oracle Competitor

stoolpigeon writes "IBM has made a move to support open source RDBMS PostgreSQL by investing in EnterpriseDB, a company that supports PostgreSQL as well as selling their own proprietary extensions to the database product. IBM participated in a $10 million funding round, though the article doesn't say how much they invested. In the past EnterpriseDB has primarily advertised itself as an Oracle competitor, though the article says, 'Derek Rodner, EnterpriseDB's director of product strategy, explained that Postgres Plus 8.3 also adds in new application quick starts which are supposed to help with installation issues. They will also help in EnterpriseDB's battle against MySQL for open source database supremacy.'"

Comments

MySQL databae supremacy

[scorp1us]

Now there's an oxymoron!

MySQL, while it has come a long way, still has a ways to go to rival PostgresSQL, technically speaking. By the time you enable all the atomicity, and PostgreSQL feature set, you arrive at worse-than PostgreSQL performance.

MySQL, while it has come a long way, still has a ways to go to rival PostgresSQL, legally speaking. PostgreSQL is BSD. MySQL is anything but. Sure, the community edition is free, but it cannot be used with commercial software. In fact, there's a special "open source exception" to the license. That's not really open source. Open Source would never make you pay server licensing fees for use in commercial software, it would only make you distribute your source at worst.

Re:MySQL databae supremacy

[MrNaz]

why is MySQL still that default database for hosted websites, and why do most open source web applications that I've looked at recommend a LAMP/WAMP stack?

Inertia.

Incidentally, you do know that Slashdot runs on MySQL don't you?

Yes, which is why they need to do such a large number of crazy voodoo tricks to scale.

Re:MySQL databae supremacy

[GooberToo]

This used to be true but no longer. The most recent release series of PostgreSQL stomps MySQL in almost every area of performance. I say, "almost" because it's possible some corner cases still exist. Now that PostgreSQL properly (native binaries vs Cygwin and fast/east installation) supports Windows, only a fool would use PostgreSQL for new projects.

MySQL uses lots of non-ANSI SQL, teaching poor SQL habits. MySQL is feature poor compared to PostgreSQL, requiring involved work arounds to do what is easy in most other RDBMs. PostgreSQL's performance now completely rocks across the performance and scalability (PostgreSQL always was ahead here) spectrum.

The only thing preventing MySQL users from migrating to a superior platform is poor, non-ANSI SQL learned from using a crappy MySQL platform in the first place.

Interesting...

[jonaskoelker]

Here's a few random thoughts:

Having recently seen Sun buy MySQL, this looks a lot like a "me too"-move. That's not to say that it doesn't make business sense.

Last I checked, IBM makes its money from two things: hardware and support. Note that software is not one of them; the software is (to them) merely what enables them to sell their bread and butter. It's also costing them money to develop and maintain software that drives sales.

That's why they've invested money in Linux, and that's why they're investing money in Postgres: offering software with a good track record and a good reputation drives sales better, and cost is driven down as the software is open source.

Still waiting for a decent GUI

[bogaboga]

I love all these Open Source databases but what troubles me most is the absence of a decent [fully] programmable GUI to "slap" onto the actual database back-end. I would like readers to think of Access which is on top of Microsoft's jet database engine. It works and works beautifully but I loath Microsoft's products.

Can one tell me why we (in the open source world), do not have a single product that competes with Access in terms of functionality, ease of use and ease of programming business logic?

Re:EnterpriseDB also has Cloud Database service

[TheLink]

Yeah, if I'm the owner of a company and not just some "Slash and Burn" CEO, I wouldn't want to have my core assets hostage to some third party _company_.

Having it in the hands of a trusted _person_ is different. If that person works for a different company, it's harder to ensure it's always that same trusted person who manages it.

Whereas if that trusted person works for you and the assets are in your company, it's a bit easier eh?