A week in Recap

I have so many things to write about, but not the time, so I am combining my past week into a single post.  Hopefully, everyone finds something beneficial in here.

Southwest Airlines

First of all, my flight to Austin was indeed canceled on Thursday.  Luckily, I was smart enough to have a backup plan.  I booked a flight to Austin via Southwest Airlines late Wednesday night.  This was my first flight on Southwest.  I always avoided it because I heard people bash it so much.  The reality for was totally different.  Their new seating assignment process is very cool.  I was the 6th one on the plane and got my exit row aisle seat.  Even my buddy who got on much later in the process got his coveted window seat.  The flight bounced through Nashville on its way to Austin.  I have to tell you, they load a plane faster than USAirways.  Way faster.  And the luggage comes out quickly as well.  All in all, I have to say that I am now a fan of Southwest Airlines and will make that my new first choice for flying.

Austin Allergies

This was my first trip to Austin and it did not completely disappoint.  However, it seems to me that all this town does is drink and listen to live music.  I got to tour the capital building and see some of the sites while I was there.  Unfortunately, work called, so I spent most of Friday working and missed out on seeing my buddy's house and his rental properties.

I also learned that just about everyone who goes to Austin gets allergies because of the cedar there.  They call it the Austin allergy or the cedar sickness.  Cute, huh?  But, what a pain in the ass.  I was loaded up on Sudafed or allergy medicine the whole weekend and went through a box of tissues. 

On to Denver

By Sunday morning, I was back on the clock full-time, flying to Denver for Collaborate 2008.  The weather on Monday and Tuesday was fantastic.  It was 80 degrees both days.  I was shocked.  But, reality crept back in Wednesday and by lunch time it was snowing again.  The Denver air cleared my allergies from Austin but left me so dry that I felt like a walking lizard.  Even the blue bear wanted to come inside.

Collaborate 2008

This was the third year that EnterpriseDB went to Collaborate and the first time we did it right.  There were 7500 people at this show and we had a 20x20 booth.  Granted, the booth was in the back, but we nailed it.  The magician got their attention and we wowed with a laundry list of customers, awards , demos and free books (autographed by Lewis Cunningham).

All in all, we brought home over 400 leads and gave away 200 books.  These books are great viral marketing tools.  Every book will go back to an office and sit on a desk or bookshelf.  Every time someone sees it, they will ask about us or, better yet, grab the book and read it.

We will not miss this show again!

MySQL Goes Closed Source... Thanks for nuthin, Sun

Wow, I get on a plane to come home yesterday and I land in Chicago (layover) and my cell phone goes ballistic.  Sun just closed MySQL's source code.  I couldn't believe it, either.  So, I had to dig a little deeper.

First, this was, I believe, the plan for MySQL all along, so don't blame Sun.  This started when MySQL split between a Community Version and an Enterprise Edition.  That was over a year ago in my book.  Second, MySQL is NOT closed source. 

What MySQL is doing is becoming a lot more like EnterpriseDB, actually.  Its the hybrid model that actually allows open source businesses to make money.  Though you can succeed with a product that is completely open source, you are limited to support and services dollars only and only from those who need it.  The potential revenue in that model is modest and does not favor long term success or fast innovation.  But, by keeping some of the product closed source, like MySQL's online backup module, or EnterpriseDB's Oracle Compatibility, you create a way to generate revenue from the software itself.  This allows the company to grow faster, to add more to the product more quickly, etc.  And, eventually, this stuff will more than likely make to open source sooner or later. 

Of course, what I find funny about this whole thing is the module itself.  MySQL says that Online backups are so cool and important that it is closed source and available for enterprises only.  It just goes to show you how immature and lightweight MySQL really is.  Online backup is a staple of any REAL database and has been a part of Postgres for years.

I can just see MySQL's next "hot" (and obviously closed-source) module now: data integrity.  LOL

American Airlines

As I posted earlier today, I am doing a lot of flying starting at 6am tomorrow.  My first flight starts at 6am tomorrow and goes from Philly to Dallas to Austin.

And guess what?  I am flying American Airlines (MD80). 

Arghh!!!! 

We'll see what happens, but right now, I can not get through on the phone to AA and my travel agent says that they are showing the flight on-time.  But, she also said that AA does not know how long it will take to inspect all the planes or how long flights will be affected.

Collaborate 2008

Tomorrow is the beginning of a very busy 8 days for me.  I am off at 6am tomorrow to Austin Texas.  One of my best friends (all the way from 6th grade) is getting married and I am in the wedding. 

Then, on Sunday, I fly to Denver for Collaborate.  Collaborate is the largest independent Oracle Users Conference with over 75000 attendees.  The show floor is huge, much bigger than LinuxWorld (but nowhere near the size of Oracle OpenWorld).  Collaborate combines the IOUG, OAUG, and Quest user groups into one massive show.

Jonah Harris, Senior Architect for EnterpriseDB, will be giving two talks:

• 361:  Advanced Session Performance Monitoring via the SGA
• 381:  Listening In:  Passive Capture and Analysis of Oracle Network Traffic

As for EnterpriseDB as a whole, we will have a 20x20 booth at the show and Lewis Cunningham, Oracle ACE and EnterpriseDB Senior Architect, will be on-hand to answer questions and sign his book, "EnterpriseDB:  The Definitive Reference".  We will be giving the book away for free, so get there early.

In addition, we have a little entertainment scheduled for you as well.  Scott Tokar will be on-hand to do some very exciting tricks for you.

I look forward to seeing you there!

2 Years and Counting...

I am happy to announce that I have now been with EnterpriseDB for 2 years (and a day)!

So far, it has been an amazing ride.  And, I have to say, I am just as excited today as I was two years ago (if not more).  The opportunity is huge.  The market has been validated.  The company is firing on all cylinders.

Now, its all about innovation and execution. 

EnterpriseDB Makes Tender Offer to Oracle

Instead of providing color commentary on our press releases (as I usually do), I thought I would let this one speak for itself.

April 1, 2008 (Edison, NJ) - Following the successful launch of Postgres Plus and the recent influx of cash from IBM(IBM), EnterpriseDB today announced that it had made a tender offer to purchase Oracle Corporation (ORCL).  

Currently trading just below $20.00, EnterpriseDB offered $.30 per share.  When asked to comment on the ridiculously low number, Derek M. Rodner, EnterpriseDB's Director of Marketing responded, "We had to account for many factors when preparing this offer.  It was a complicated process.  Once you account for the future value of money and the expected value of Oracle's database business in 5 years, the numbers came out to be staggeringly low." 

Larry Ellison was not available for comment, however an inside source at Oracle claims that the database business is the only part of the business that makes money today and the profit margins exceed what he called "morally ethical".

Though Oracle does not see their database business declining significantly over the next 5 years, analysts tend to be mixed.  Some see open source databases disrupting the proprietary market, taking significant market share from Oracle and forcing Oracle to dramatically lower their prices.

EnterpriseDB's offer expires at midnight tonight and it is unclear whether Oracle will accept or not. 

OSBC Coming to a Close

Well, OSBC is coming to a close.  The exhibit hall is closed and all packed up and the final sessions are underway.  What a great networking event.  Don't expect to get leads at this show, but if you want to hobnob with the "players" in open source, you have to be at this show.  Speaking of which, this is a picture from the Open Source Database Panel held yesterday. 

From left to right in the picture:  Moderator Matt Aslett, Analyst for the 451 Group, Zack Urlocker, from MySQL, Andy Astor, CEO of EnterpriseDB, Ken Jacobs from Oracle and Roger Burkhardt from Ingres. 

The panel was okay in my opinion.  Zack did an excellent job as always and Andy held his own, as well.  I thought Ken tried to be an open source guy, but the veil was thin and he was in an awkward position.  Oracle did not belong on that panel at all.  Roger was a walking sales pitch and his act got old quickly.  All in all, it was entertaining.  But, 50 minutes was too short and the whole thing was a little too marketing, even for me.

We had a nice looking booth (if I do say so myself) and I am including  a picture of that as well.  I had a lot of conversations with other marketing executives from open source companies and the discussions were the same over and over.  Lead generation and lead nurturing were always hot topics.  How to turn free usage into paying customers.  After all, this was the Open Source Business Conference.  We are in business to make money. 

That is all for now.  I have a lot more to talk about, but don't have the time.

Postgres Rocks

Yep, there I've said it.  In case you have been hiding under a rock and thought MySQL was the open source database of choice, now you know.  This blog post officially puts you on notice that Postgres is taking over.

Today, EnterpriseDB announced the release of the Postgres Plus family.  But, that's not all we announced.  Here are three bullets on what we announced at OSBC this morning:

• Announcing the new standard in open source databases:  Postgres Plus.  The family includes Postgres Plus, totally free and open source and chock full of new features!  Postgres Plus Advanced Server is commercially licensed and includes Oracle compatibility, advanced monitoring/management and dynamic tuning (now with workload profiling)
• GridSQL is now released under the GPLv2 (with some cool license exceptions) and is fully integrated with Postgres Plus
• And, this is really cool - IBM has made a strategic investment in EnterpriseDB!  We have officially closed our Series C funding and IBM joined our existing investors!  Now, how often do you see that?

I will have a lot more to say about all three of these MAJOR events over the course of the next few days.  But, I wanted to get the main news out there.  I am at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco this week for the announcements.  If you are at OSBC, stop by and say hello!

While the World Slept...

Ever have one of those defining moments when you realized that you were a part of something special?  Well, it's 1:46am here in San Francisco and I am sitting in my hotel room testing our new website.  And at the same time, there are a dozen folks in the office in Edison, NJ doing the same thing.  They are working through the night and all of them worked ALL WEEKEND to make this happen.  Are they all marketing folks?  Of course not.  This is not their job.  They do other things like, sales, sales engineering, development.  The co-founders are involved testing too.  And, its not just here.  All around the world, every office is involved in testing the site that just went live.

No, this is not their job.  But, this is OUR company and everyone here jumps in to help the other.  We all have the same goal and we are all rowing in the same direction.  It really is something to see. 

Take a look around your office today.  Would it be the same in your company?  I can't say that it would have been this way in any other company I worked for.

When you spend forty, sixty, eighty hours a week working, you need the reassurance that this is more than just a job or a career.  If you don't, I encourage you to find your own EnterpriseDB.

Where the hell have you been, Derek?

Well, I have not blogged since March 1.  Why?  Check back in just a few hours.

What's your start page?

What do you use as your start page when you fire up a browser?  I think there are four answers:

1. Default.  Whatever the browser came with.  Are you like my wife?  She still uses IE and never bothered to change the start page.  She uses MSN.  Yes, she is a lemming when it comes to PCs (as I expect most are.)
2. Blank Page.  You use the net to research something and be done.  You don't care about the news, sports updates or anything else.  Give me a black slate and I will choose what to look at.  (I suspect there are only a few of these folks out there.)
3. Corporate Intranet.  You work for one of those companies that sets the page for you.  Unisys was like this.  The corporate-standard start page for the corporate-standard Microsoft browser was the Unisys intranet.  Now, it was better than most intranets, but I don't care to be so internally focused.  Fortunately, they do let you change it.  Anyone who can change the page but haven't?  Please refer to number 1 above.
4. My Page.  If you are like me, you have set your home page to a start page that collects and digests all the information you need in one spot.  MyYahoo! is a prime example and has been my staple start page for almost 8 years.  I think a lot of people fit in this category.

But, I am changing...  Over the last 8 months I have been playing with Netvibes and I really like it.  For some reason, I still keep MyYahoo! as my start page, but I use Netvibes much more regularly.   It is a wonderful too for both work and play.  I have multiple tabbed pages.  One is for news (local, national, international).  I also have weather on there.  The next page is all about analysts.  If I am a subscriber and they have an RSS feed, its on there.  Next, a stock tab.  This is less about my portfolio and more about the stocks that I am tracking that are related to work.  I also have a tab of blogs.  This includes industry blogs and individual blogs from folks that matter in the world of open source or Postgres.  This page also has a blog search module that searches nine different blog aggregators or search engines.  This is the most valuable tool on the whole page.  The last work related tab is all about Oracle.  This is a great tab and was actually created by someone else and made public to all as a "Universe" in Netvibes.  What a cool concept.

I encourage you to check it out.  And, if you have a suggestion for another web 2.0 start page, let me know!