Comment Good move, RH (Score 1) 198
If you've had a chance to talk to any IT managers out there who are responsible for purchasing database licences, you'll notice that most wince when you mention Oracle.
As a programmer, you'll know Oracle as rock solid, fast as hell, and cross-platform. As an IT manager or purchaser, you'll know Oracle as a huge organization with extremely cocky, turf-protecting salesfolks who will try to gouge you to the best of their ability.
If you're legal/legit with your Oracle licencing, and you're running a big site, chances are you're paying in the millions of dollars for licences.
For a database. A database. Let me repeat that. A database.
Now, Oracle has developed kick-butt support over the last few years, and they can pretty much guarantee 24x7 uptime. IF you're willing to pay their insane licencing fees.
I do tech consulting for a living, and I'm already seeing my clients make the M$ choice over Oracle just because Oracle is too damn expensive. Now these are smart folks. They're not MS zealots. They've done their research, and seen that MSSQL gets you there in MOST situations. (I still prefer Oracle but...) They are then faced with a purchasing decision, and can spend __LITERALLY__ $3,000,000 on Oracle licences, or $300,000 on MS. Do the math. Oracle is becoming aware that people are going with competitors. It's starting to affect their bottom line. How do we know this? Well, they just dropped the prices on most of their databases, and changed their licensing agreements, something they wouldnt do unless they we're pressured by the market. Some would argue that they are still too expensive.
Corporate users demand 24x7 uptime from their databases. Postgres, as far as I can see, doesnt have a coordinated support strategy to address these uptime issues, which keeps PGSQL from getting really huge. Addressing these mission critical support and management issues is undoubtedly what RedHat aims to do, hopefully at a good price. Plus the'll make the DB cross-platform, which is nice.
Hmm. I think I'm selling my Oracle stock....
As a programmer, you'll know Oracle as rock solid, fast as hell, and cross-platform. As an IT manager or purchaser, you'll know Oracle as a huge organization with extremely cocky, turf-protecting salesfolks who will try to gouge you to the best of their ability.
If you're legal/legit with your Oracle licencing, and you're running a big site, chances are you're paying in the millions of dollars for licences.
For a database. A database. Let me repeat that. A database.
Now, Oracle has developed kick-butt support over the last few years, and they can pretty much guarantee 24x7 uptime. IF you're willing to pay their insane licencing fees.
I do tech consulting for a living, and I'm already seeing my clients make the M$ choice over Oracle just because Oracle is too damn expensive. Now these are smart folks. They're not MS zealots. They've done their research, and seen that MSSQL gets you there in MOST situations. (I still prefer Oracle but...) They are then faced with a purchasing decision, and can spend __LITERALLY__ $3,000,000 on Oracle licences, or $300,000 on MS. Do the math. Oracle is becoming aware that people are going with competitors. It's starting to affect their bottom line. How do we know this? Well, they just dropped the prices on most of their databases, and changed their licensing agreements, something they wouldnt do unless they we're pressured by the market. Some would argue that they are still too expensive.
Corporate users demand 24x7 uptime from their databases. Postgres, as far as I can see, doesnt have a coordinated support strategy to address these uptime issues, which keeps PGSQL from getting really huge. Addressing these mission critical support and management issues is undoubtedly what RedHat aims to do, hopefully at a good price. Plus the'll make the DB cross-platform, which is nice.
Hmm. I think I'm selling my Oracle stock....
