Comments on: Database vendors eye open-source effect

As Oracle, IBM and Microsoft ready the next competitive round, open-source alternatives start to make their mark.

Open Source DBs innovate, not only commoditize

I think it is shortsighted to see open source products only as a mean to commoditize software. Open source software is often better and/or more innovative than closed source offerings because they have a much larger community behind them. Examples are PostgreSQL, probably the most reliable ORDBMS (http://www.postgresql.org), and db4o, the open source object database (http://www.db4o.com), that has put native object-oriented persistence back onto the map by means of being open source.

Incomplete quote???

"We think the market is so mature, and frankly the products so overpriced and complex, it really is a market," said Andy Astor, CEO of EnterpriseDB, which launched in May.

"... it really is a market,?????"

[System Tyrant]

MySQL

MySQL hasen't reached into the enterprise world yet due impart to it's lack of features. However, the next version (5.x) promises a lot, but not all, of those features. I know that these "other" DBs don't really have all the bells and whistles of some of the commercial apps, but for me I don't use them anyway.

I will stick with MySQL. It's just easy to setup and use. Has lots of support and is getting all the features that make a good enterprise class DB.

[Jim Satterfield]

Sloppy

One of the paragraphs in the article is "One of the major planned features for Viper is the ability to store and index XML documents natively, rather than having to reformat, or "shred," XML documents into a relational database. Viper will have a feature called range partitioning, which is designed to let programmers write more specific, and faster, database queries."

Before this paragraph and after there is no mention of Viper. None. Which company is this product coming from, anyway?

[System Tyrant]

IBM

I believe they said it was the codename for the next version of DB2.

[quasarstrider]

MySQL does not scale uh?

Well, Sabre still use it just fine AFAIK, not to mention Wikipedia. Heck, if it can handle the load at Wikipedia, it is fine for my humble requirements.

[My-Self]

You nailed it ...

When people understand that, the database war is over.
Below 10% of users will ever need any of the features the big 3 offer. and if a feature is really needed, Open Source databases will integrate it within a few months.

The only thing really missing for PHP / MySQL is a friendly, easy to use Integrated Development Environment and that's a great opportunity for commercial developers, since open source generally focuses on core functions rather than user friendliness.