Re: Has anyone seen this marketing gimmick? EnterpriseDB vs MySQL vs MariaDB

On 09/26/2017 05:35 AM, Stephen Frost wrote:
> Simon,

> I certainly wouldn't have complained at all if the original article
> under discussion here had looked at 2017-to-date, or 2016-to-date, or
> any other reasonable time range to draw their conclusion from about
> which companies contribute to PG development, the complaint here is that
> they didn't appear to do any such analysis, nor did they even
> acknowledge that multiple companies are involved in PG development, and
> that's what I find particularly unfortunate.

It is unfortunate but not unexpected. The company with the best
marketing and networking department wins. EDB does one thing better than
every other Postgres company: marketing and networking. They have been
on a systematic path of brand narrative control for over a decade and it
continues to pay off. EDB realized long ago that when it comes to brand
awareness and narrative, .Org leaves everything to be desired. .Org does
not speak the language that the majority of companies want to hear. EDB
does.

I remember when EDB spent an ridiculous amount of money to have a huge
booth, right next to another huge booth at LinuxWorld. The other huge
boot was Oracle. It was bold and as a great actor once said, "This raid,
even if it makes it through, it'll only be a pinprick... but it'll be
straight through their hearts."[1]

Would .Org be willing to make that kind of bold move? No. As a whole
.Org is all about get along or move along. We don't rock the boat
(anymore). Some of this is to be expected, the community in France is
very different than the community in NYC. They want to hear and see
different things. They have different or at least a different view of
how those goals can be met.

And before someone says, "let's start an initiative!" let's remember
that collectively WE ARE NOT marketing people. Some of us are better
than others at it but at our hearts we are geeks. We are o.k. at
advocating to our masses but the guy cutting the check for 100k is not
our masses. The people who organized this webinar and the people who
will watch this webinar are not our masses. We as a community DO NOT
have the skills that EDB has in this department.

If we did have such marketing and networking skills, there is too much
animosity and indifference in this community toward the type of work
real advocacy and marketing takes. It is very difficult for someone to
feel motivated to put in the level of effort it would take to build up
.Org to even a remotely similar level.

Until this community accepts that advocacy, marketing and networking are
just as important (if not more important) than contributing code these
types of discussions are just merry go rounds.

Thanks,

JD

P.S. I am sure if you review the archives you will see that this exactly
discussion with different players has happened dozens of times with
similar results.

1. Alec Baldwin in Perl Harbor

>
> Thanks!
>
> Stephen
>

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