OSBC Keynote Notes

I'm sitting at the opening session of the Open Source Business Conference. A few of my favorite moments...updated in real time...

Matt Asay continues his open source evangelism with a term I haven't heard him use before (or at least don't remember). He describes a Market of Abundance - contrary to traditional markets (of scarcity), digitization of goods means that these goods are now infinitely available for virtually zero cost. Therefore, the value is no longer in these goods; it's in what you add to them. It's about sharing and adoption, and adding collaborative value over time.

Matt also cited a very cool statistic. About a year ago, he , Robin Vasan, and Larry Augustin did some "math," and determined that industry had invested about $2 billion in open source. Well, in 2008, open source company exits totaled about that same amount. So $2B in, $2B out..."now it gets interesting."

Jim Whitehurst, the new CEO of Red Hat, continued this theme. He explained that, since the "bits" (source code) are all open source, it "keeps us on our toes," ensuring the focus is on delighting customers. And the way to add value is way beyond "iteration of the bits." Some

Raven Zachary asked Jim Whitehurst about consolidation and the role of Red Hat moving forward. After a caveat that he's only been in the job 90 days, Jim stated that Red Hat will "narrow its [acquisition] aperture, to "enterprise infrastructure software," but will be aggressive on that front.

Announcing Postgres Plus

Today was a very busy day at EnterpriseDB. We announced progress on a variety of fronts, which I'll highlight in this post. I will post more detail about each topic in subsequent posts as the week goes on,  but here are the key announcements:

1. We announced the Postgres Plus product family, releasing 3 Generally Available products simultaneously. (For those of you not in the software products business...this is no small feat!)

2. We announced that IBM has joined our latest financing round, a Series C that also includes all of our existing investors, Fidelity, Charles River, and Valhalla

3.  We open sourced GridSQL, our parallel query engine that provides massive scalability of complex queries across unlimited servers, with no knowledge of the calling application. (Try explaining that one to your mother.)

4. We launched a new web site to reflect the product changes, and to make the EnterpriseDB community experience more enjoyable and easy-to-use.

5. We set the stage for a component-based architecture that you'll be hearing much more about in the coming weeks.

Details to follow!

PostgreSQL: More Traffic than MySQL?

MarkMail, a mailing list archive service, found that Postgres gets far more traffic in its mailing lists than MySQL. Since, January 2000, MySQL has 340,000 messages with about 3000 new messages per month. Meanwhile, Postgres has 583,000 messages in that same period and 7,000 new messages each month! You can read all of the details and see the charts here.

LinuxWorld Top Leader Recognition

I was very gratified yesterday to learn that LinuxWorld named me one of 2008's top leaders in the open source business. I would be lying if I said I wasn't just a little proud (yes, I sent the piece to my mom). But truthfully, I am actually most pleased about the article because it recognizes the EnterpriseDB business model as a "bold step in an industry were the GPL reigns in popularity." It's nice to see the fulfillment of our vision: to support and help grow the one of the longest-lived and most dynamic open source communities via an economically feasible business model. Thanks, LinuxWorld. I'm honored to share the recognition with Denis Lussier (co-founder) and the rest of the EnterpriseDB team.

Apple and Microsoft Grumblings

I'm writing to complain. I don't do it often, but I've had two experiences in the past two weeks that have really pissed me off.

About a year ago, I made the switch from the PC to the Mac, and never looked back. What a difference! The integrated search capabilities alone make it worthwhile, never mind flawless sleep mode, a loosely-coupled application/OS architecture, and really cool design work in so many respects. Even Microsoft Office is pretty good on the Mac. So what's my beef? One each for Apple and Microsoft...

Apple: I decided recently to upgrade the RAM from 2GB to 3GB, the machine's max. I went to the Apple store and purchased the required 1x2GB chip...for $500. That seemed high, so I went online (to newegg.com). The same memory was $58. That's right...nearly an order of magnitude less expensive, and it works perfectly. I understand pricing decisions, and it's completely fair that Apple commands a price premium. But 10x?? That's just not right. Thankfully, I hadn't opened the Apple memory box, and was able to return it.

And now to Microsoft: I've been so pleased with Office 2004, that I actually pre-ordered Office 2008, which came out last week. What a disaster. It's bloated. It's slow. It corrupted by Office database (twice...at least it's consistent). It's new features are not compelling (although MyDay is kind of nice). Similar to the Apple story, though, this has a happy ending. I re-installed Office 2004, pointed to my old database, and I was back up and running on ol' reliable in less than 15 minutes.

To my friends at Apple and Microsoft...That's no way to treat your customers.

That's the end of my whine. I'll get back to more positive topics next time.

MySQL's Heliocentric Universe

As you’ve no doubt heard, Sun announced today that it is buying MySQL – for about $1 billion! While it’s only been a few hours since the announcement, I thought I’d put down some initial thoughts.

Market Validation
First, this transaction clearly validates the strategic – and commercial – importance of open source databases (OSDBs) like MySQL and Postgres/EnterpriseDB. It also validates the claims we’ve seen recently from key analyst firms, who have observed a significant increase in production use of OSDBs during the past two years, and who have begun to guide enterprises toward using OSDBs for a variety of production applications. Indeed, Gartner issued a report on this topic just last week.

By all reports, the $1 billion purchase price is 10-to-20 times trailing annual revenues, and the acquisition is by far the biggest ever in the open source software space. If there was doubt left in anyone’s mind of the impact of open source in the market, or of the potential value of open source companies, this puts that question to rest.

MySQL is Not Postgres!
We’re very happy for our friends at MySQL, who produce a fine database for a different set of customers and markets than does EnterpriseDB. MySQL is very strong in the website and other architecturally-simple applications, while Postgres/EnterpriseDB was designed from the ground up for enterprise-class applications, including high-volume OLTP. Truth be told, we almost never compete with each other in customer deals. Sun recognized this difference in their conference calls today, re-affirming their commitment to Postgres for those customers who require it.

A Heliocentric Universe
In their public communications today, Sun emphasized that their business model is all about customer choice. Jonathan Schwartz noted that they distribute products from competing vendors. Therefore, he posited, MySQL simply fits in neatly with all the rest. While there’s some truth to this, the fact of the matter is that MySQL’s sphere of influence is now Sun-centered. The remaining platform vendors — including IBM, Red Hat, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, and even HP — have to be looking at MySQL in a whole new light today...one that recognizes that the database is owned by a competitor. No matter how many ways I try to look at it, MySQL is now SunDB. And what becomes of MySQL’s partners, who will now be integrated into the Sun infrastructure? At a minimum, this will cause confusion and uncertainty in the short run.

Why Not an IPO?
MySQL announced months ago that they were planning to go public, rather than be acquired. Truthfully, I’ve never believed that would happen. Their business model (1 out of every 1,000 users pays, and only a small amount at that) has gotten them nicely to somewhere in the $50-75 million. But that’s with more than a million downloads a month. Without a biiiigggg parent company and its associated distribution channels, how much bigger can they grow, and how quickly? Could they meet the requirements Wall Street places on superstar companies? I’ve never believed it would happen. I think they did the right thing by selling.

How Does This Impact EnterpriseDB?
Very positively!!!

• It is another huge validation for the open source database market, in which we operate
• We are left as the leading independent OSDB, growing by more than 250% last year
• We are friends – not competitors – of all the platform vendors, including Sun
• A valuation benchmark has been set (although there are no certainties about the future)
• Bloggers, analysts, and press are all over the story, and we’re included frequently

What do you think? I’d like to hear thoughts.

-- Andy

P.S. While Sun is clearly investing in the “M” in LAMP, I wonder how they feel about the “L”? ;-)

Book Reports

Back from the promised vacation. I'm in the midst of putting together a significant update that looks back on EDB in 2007 and forward to 2008, so I'll leave that subject alone for the moment. I'll just say that Curacao remains a great place to vacation, that the Dolphin Academy rocks, and that I successfully read more non-work pages in the past week than I have in the past year. Brief book reports follow:

I'd highly recommend "Water for Elephants." It's a quick read, a great story, and a wonderful diversion for a couple of days. I'm a big fan of fiction taking place in earlier times, and this is the story of the US phenomenon of train-based circuses. Roustabouts, elephants, tigers, hobos, rubes, the works. This is one you'll read and pass along to a good friend.

I'm nearly done with "World Without End," Ken Follett's 1,000-page epic that takes place in the mid-1300's. Like all of Follett's work, it is rife with deviousness, violence, war, sex, death, love, betrayal...the works. It's a fast read, and very compelling. I must say, though, that I liked his first book in this genre, "Pillars of the Earth," much better. Perhaps it's just that it was my first experience bringing the middle ages to life, but this one seems a bit like more of the same to me.

Happy new year to all!

Dolphins (redux) and Holiday Wishes

It's off to Dolphin-land again for the family. We'll be down in Curacao for a week, with lots of scuba, books, and dolphins. It's a much-needed vacation, and my plans are to be relatively unplugged the whole time. (Relatively...I just can't bring myself to truly commit to taking a break, can I?)

I've got two books coming with me on the trip. The first is Ken Follett's huge tome "World Without End." It's a follow-up to his "Pillars of the Earth," which I thoroughly enjoyed. The second book is "Water for Elephants," by Sara Gruen. I know very little about it, but my wife loved it. Not sure which will get picked up...

It's been a wild year at EnterpriseDB...explosive growth, amazing customers, terrific new team members, and great change. I'll be speaking more about the year in review shortly after my return. In the meantime, I wish everyone a holiday season filled with peace and joy, and I hope the new year brings great adventures to you and yours.

The OSA Report (including the Popularity of Postgres)

The Open Solutions Alliance (OSA) just published the results of the 5 customer forums they held in 2007. The report is a quick read (11 pages), and is quite thoughtful and balanced. I will highlight a couple of points I found particularly interesting, but I'd encourage you to read it for yourself.

First, a great insight from the report is the relative popularity of Postgres for serious applications. Customers in the forums were from "both public and private sectors, both large and small organizations, both business and technical managers, and both early adopters and mainstream users. When asked about their open source usage, "about 50% used open-source databases, equally divided between MySQL and Postgres." Equally divided...hmmm...

If measured by pure downloads, MySQL's claim of being the world's most popular database is certainly true. But most serious developers know that Postgres (particularly that slick distribution from EnterpriseDB ;-) is the world's most advanced open source database, and that it combines extraordinary capability with terrific ease of use.

Another great insight from the report is the question of why people gravitate to open source software. Cost Reduction is "by far" the number one reason, particularly because it allows you to pay later in the usage cycle, when the code's value is delivered, rather than paying up-front licensing. Just as important an insight is that the Ability to Customize code is not at all important; most people want their software "as is."

These two points precisely reflect our experience with our customers. They are looking for less expensive alternatives that are available for free until value is delivered. Furthermore, customers want to know that experts are building their software, and have little or no interest in modifying the database code themselves. There are, of course, exceptions, but they are few and far between.

There's lots more meat in the report. Go read it!

Responding to The Register

OK, folks, it's been a really long time since I blogged. Guilty as charged of procrastination beyond belief. But today's article in The Register means that I've got to get back to the keyboard. Here goes...

Let's start with a few objective facts about the state of EnterpriseDB:

1. We're in the final month of our best quarter ever
2. 2007 sales growth over 2006 will be measured in multiples, not percentage points
3. We have nearly 200 customers, compared with about 60 at the end of 2006
4. In just 7 quarters of sales, our repeat business rate is huge
5. Our average sales price is increasing consistently over time

Does this sound like a company in trouble? No, it doesn't seem like it to me, either. So, what's the story?

The story is really simple and really common. EnterpriseDB is a young company, and like every other young company I've ever been involved with, we are fine-tuning our business model. In our case, that meant recognizing that a large direct field sales force was overkill, and that most prospective customers prefer to work with us over the phone, anyway.

So, we had to say goodbye to a few great people, and we also asked a couple of underperforming individuals to leave. At the same time, we also brought on several new key individuals, and are actively hiring for many more (including -- guess where -- inside salespeople).

Like any business, we make plans based on educated guesses about what the market will want, and how we we can best deliver it. We adjust those plans according to actual market feedback. These adjustments include changes in products, service offerings, sales models, and every other aspect of business.

The problem is not that we've made a few changes. The problem would be if we failed to do so.

Hot Hot Hot

I want to share my excitement with you about an event that just took place in the Postgres community.

A couple of days ago, the Postgres enhancement known as HOT (Heap Only Tuples) was committed into the code base for the next release (v8.3). In a nutshell, HOT significantly increases the performance of Postgres over long periods of time in update-intensive OLTP applications.

“This is a good thing,” you might say, “but what's the big deal?” I’m glad you asked...

HOT is the largest and deepest single change to the Postgres base that has been implemented in the last several years. It impacts many areas of the core database, and is truly something that could be called "rocket science." The reason I'm so pleased about HOT (besides the obvious customer benefit) is that the enhancement was conceived, designed, implemented, and shepherded through the community entirely by the EnterpriseDB team.

The acceptance of HOT into the 8.3 code base means two things: First, it is the flagship example of our commitment to contribute back to the community large quantities of enormous value. It feels great to give back to a community that has given us the basis of our very existence. Second, HOT firmly seats EnterpriseDB as a leader in the community; one of the very few organizations — perhaps the only one — on the planet that is able to deliver Postgres technology of this complexity and size.

It is a particularly great day for the team that did the work. First and foremost, I have to recognize Pavan Deolasee, who was the thought leader on this effort from beginning to end. Of course, many others contributed greatly to the project, including Anupama Aherrao, Korry Douglas, Dharmendra Goyal, Jonah Harris, Hope Jiang, Sivakumar Krishnamurthy, Heikki Linnakangas, Shoaib Mir, Bruce Momjian, Nikhil Sontakke, Greg Stark, Yaser Raja, Umair Shahid, and Peter Yarrow.

Home Sweet Home

Over the Labor Day holiday weekend, EnterpriseDB (finally) moved into its new offices. In 2 years, we’ve gone from 1,000 feet in the the back of a warehouse, to a 5,000-square foot sublet, to an 8,000 square foot sublet, and now finally to a 17,000 foot, 5+ year lease that was built to our specifications. We now have plenty of space for guests, conferences, training, and more. I’ve included some pictures below.

So if you’re a friend of EnterpriseDB, and you’re in the Edison, New Jersey area (one block from the Metropark Amtrak station), feel free to drop by for a cup of coffee and a dime tour. And if you need an office to use for the day, just ask.

A New Database Blog

Michael Stonebraker and several other database luminaries have just started a new blog that is worth checking out. Stonebraker was the principal architect behind Postgres and Ingres, and commercialized them into Ingres Corp., Illustra, and others.

The first entry in the blog calls attention to Stonebraker's new company Vertica and its column-oriented database technology. For data warehousing and certain specialized databases, Stonebraker claims a 50-fold performance improvement. Very impressive, indeed. And for these specialized circumstances, probably very appropriate.

Stonebraker makes the point that traditional databases, including Oracle and Postgres, are 25 years old and somewhat long-in-the-tooth. Perhaps. But for most of us, they are also proven and stable technologies that work for the millions of systems in which they're installed. Indeed, it is precisely because Oracle and Postgres are so proven and stable that EnterpriseDB believes they should be far less expensive and cross-compatible with each other.

Vertica's job is to take databases to the next frontier. Ours is to make the current frontier easy to use, affordable, and accessible to everyone.

PostgreSQL or Postgres

There's a discussion going on right now on the PostgreSQL advocacy mailing list, about whether to change the name from PostgreSQL back to Postgres, which was its original name. To summarize and oversimplify the conversation, many people seem to feel that PostgreSQL is awkward, hard to read, and/or too often mispronounced. Others feel that a name change is not worth the effort.

From my perspective, it's time for a change. Postgres's name was changed to PostgreSQL in the 90's, when its query language to modernized to SQL. It is now 2007, and everyone's query language is now SQL. In other words, it's no longer anything to brag about, and is actually distracting, in my opinion.

We've put a one-question survey onto the EnterpriseDB Postgres site, asking about this topic. If you have an opinion, please stand up and be counted. Thanks.

Closson on Open Source Databases

In a brief eWeek Q&A yesterday, Kevin Closson was asked if open source databases like Postgres and others are becoming serious alternatives for Oracle. "Yes, more and more," he said. His answer is indicative of the sea change we're living through, in which insane prices from oligopolists are no longer the only game in town. As Kevin points out, it often no longer makes sense to spend $40,000-$60,000 per CPU, when you can get much of the same thing for a small fraction of the cost. Right on, Kevin, and with compatibility, migration is a cinch!

EnterpriseDB Announcements

I want let you all know about three very exciting (at least I think so) announcements coming out of EnterpriseDB at LinuxWorld today.

First, we are releasing a fully open source, commercial grade, cross platform distribution of PostgreSQL and supporting technologies called EnterpriseDB Postgres. This distribution is drop-dead simple to install and use , and comes pre-bundled and configured with replication, administration tools, client connectors, spatial capabilities, security, encryption, and more. Until now, PostgreSQL had a reputation as a great database that was hard to install and configure. No more. Going forward, it’ll be way easier to use than MySQL, with no loss of its robust capabilities.

Second, we are launching the EnterpriseDB Postgres Resource Center (PRC). This is a community website (http://postgres.enterprisedb.com) that will be the home of EnterpriseDB Postgres. It will also house a robust community forum, and a ton of useful tools, applications, documents, articles, FAQs, etc. It is our hope and intention that the PRC will be a important destination site for people who use PostgreSQL, both commercially and in non-profits.

Both of these announcements reflect our ongoing commitment to PostgreSQL and its community, and to providing the best commercial PostgreSQL support, services, and training available in the world.

Finally, we’re announcing today the release of GridSQL, a major new product. GridSQL is a parallel database server that automatically partitions data across any number of servers, and provides nearly linear performance scalability. What’s really cool about GridSQL is that it implements this shared nothing distributed architecture in a way that is transparent to the calling applications. Just install, connect your servers, and go. Available at a fraction of the cost of any comparable solution, GridSQL is something to watch.

One caveat. All three of these new additions are in version 1.0 right now. They will be growing in depth and breadth over the coming weeks and months, so give them a try (they’re all available for free), and let me know what you think. Thanks.

Dolphins

Why in the world did I mention dolphins in yesterday's post? Well, my daughter's a bit of an animal fan, and is studying in a marine biology high school. Last year, we visited the Dolphin Academy at the Curacao Sea Aquarium. The family has done a couple of other programs before, and I've simply never experienced anything like this. There are plenty of dolphin touch-and-swim programs to choose from, but the Dolphins In-Depth course is really stupendous. Taught by head trainer George Kieffer, it's five 4-hour days of intense and intimate learning, including about 50% classroom and 50% in the water with the dolphins. I have a couple of pretty cool pictures...let me know if you want to see them.

Summer of Bourne

I tend to be a little obsessed with work, and find very little time for recreational reading. But when I went to Curacao earlier this summer (phenomenal dolphin program there), I was looking for a little escape. With the Bourne Ultimatum coming out in August, I opted for the prior book in the series, the Bourne Supremacy. What a great read! 700 pages of pure, adrenalin pumping fun, with a deep and complex character to keep it interesting.

So to complete the picture, I went to see Bourne Ultimatum last night. Realistically, I wouldn't have gotten back to the book for months. Matt Damon does a great -- and nicely understated -- job of capturing the character. With supporting stints from Albert Finney (is he ever less than great?), Joan Allen, and David Strathairn, it's a worthwhile accompaniment to high-fat popcorn.

Other's Open Thoughts - Kevin Closson

Some of you may have read Kevin Closson's blog post a couple of weeks ago, entitled EnterpriseDB: We Don't Need No Stinkin' Oracle Licenses. What Is This Oracle Partner Network Anyway?

Yikes...tough title. But the post itself is actually a thoughtful piece that asks some good questions about EnterpriseDB's capabilities, well beyond licensing. I posted a response to it right away, but Kevin went on vacation and it sat unmoderated until last night. It's now up, so you may be interested in having a look.

Gartner on Oracle

According to Gartner’s Donald Feinberg, "The average Oracle customer should wait about 12 months before evaluation and testing (11G), allowing the early adopters to "work out the kinks" associated with new releases. "

Fascinating...a year to work out the kinks...