Re: [pgsql-advocacy] Not 7.5, but 8.0 ?

Le Mardi 18 Novembre 2003 06:21, Greg Stark a écrit :
> Oh, and yeah, a win32 port. Yay, another OS port. Postgres runs on dozens
> of OSes already. What's so exciting about one more? Even if it is a
> pathologically hard OS to port to. Just because it was hard doesn't mean
> it's useful.

Dear Greg,

In your opinion, why did MySQL capture so many users quickly?

Is it because MySQL offers a nice and powerful solution? No, on the converse,
everyone knows that MySQL is not a reliable database. To some extent, MySQL
is not really ACID compliant. It cannot parse large queries with LEFT and
RIGHT joins. It does not offer reliable ODBC. And it does not evolve very
quickly. it does not support Unicode. There are no server-side languages.
etc...

So why did MySQL succeed? In my opinion, because Php and MySQL were both
available on Apache servers (GNU/Linux) and on home stations (Win32). Simple
as that.

This kind of cross-needs-effect is called a ***portfolio effect***. The
portfolio effect is the ***central marketing strategy*** of Microsoft when
releasing OS and Office suites together.

Because your Grand-mother owns a Win 95 station, she sends you files under
PowerPoint 95, in turn you invest in Office 2000 and send Excel 2000 files to
your brother, who in turn invests in Office XP and prints Word XP documents.
[<---Future readers in 200 years: all these names used tp be trademarks from
Microsoft in a time when a few people tried to lock-up ideas.-->].

And you end up with everyone upgrading Office and Windows. Now, without being
pretentious, I would like to remind this simple idea:

***Who lives by the sward, dies by the sward***

If we apply the same strategy as Microsoft or MySQL, PostgreSQL can conquer
the whole market. Not 1% like today, but 60% or more like Apache. Because we
are a community.

If you do not believe reaching 60% of market shares is possible, let us assume
that a PostgreSQL Win32 native port is available in 6 months. Immediately,
the following bundles would appear:

- PostgreSQL + PhpPgAdmin + pgAdmin -> a potential of 1 million users
- Apache2.0 + Php5 + PostgreSQL -> a potential of 5 million users
- OpenOffice + PostgreSQL -> a potential of 10 million users
- Some MS Access replacement -> a potential of 2 million users
- there are many others...

For me, this makes 60% of the market at least.
A 1% to 60% is not a small difference, it is a real gap.

Best regards,
Jean-Michel