Recently, Ashnik tied-up with EnterpriseDB as its Master partner for ASEAN region. This is exciting for customers, partners as well as developers in the region, as they have Ashnik to approach for their PostgreSQL needs, closer home. ( For those who are not aware of EnterpriseDB, it is a commercial vendor behind PostgreSQL – the leading open source RDBMS )
Having worked for 9 years in OS layer of open source, it is personally a very important step for me and Ashnik to bring more value to the customers in the form of leading open source database. Through Red Hat Enterprise Linux Ashnik continues to bring open source OS, virtualization and Cloud services for its customers. But the database market is far bigger than OS market.
Total database market is estimated to be around $21Billion for 2010 and growing at 6-8% per annum. To me, this shows that enterprises continue to pay a huge amount of license fees to the proprietary databases – as the numbers show that top 3 vendors Oracle, IBM, Microsoft garner almost 3/4th of the market share. In my discussions with enterprises almost every time I have heard that CIOs are not happy with the returns they get from the license fee they pay for these proprietary database vendors. Most CIOs have been voicing a need for strong alternatives.
While open source databases have been around for many years – PostgreSQL and MySQL being the leading names, with recent acquisition of Sun (and in turn MySQL) by Oracle, there have been doubts in the minds of enterprises about MySQL’s ability to remain independent and thriving open source organisations. On the other hand I found that EnterpriseDB has been silently strengthening its commitment to make PostgreSQL commercially successful. Even industry has responded very positively not just by adopting PostgreSQL but by investing in EnterpriseDB. The big names such as NTT, Kore Telecom, Intel, Red Hat, IBM have invested and are partnering. The $50 million that EnterpriseDB has been able to raise so far signifies the importance industry is attaching to the success of EnterpriseDB.
On the technology front PostgreSQL was always considered as true relational database and with EntepriseDB’s involvement it has been able to offer good user acceptance, ease of installation etc. EnterpriseDB has successfully positioned it as replacement for Oracle Database in the enterprises.
At Ashnik we see this as an opportunity to bring more value to customers, partners and ISVs in the region. Ashnik would be working with EnterpriseDB to develop the customer base and partner eco system to grow this market collectively.
