2007 Year in Review

2007 was a busy year for the database market, which to some people may sound surprising.  After all, the database market is supposedly the most mature and stagnant market.  Even Gartner stopped doing a Magic Quadrant for the database market years ago because there is nothing new...  hmmm..

So, what interesting things happened this year?  Here are a few, in no particular order, along with my commentary

  1. Oracle quietly changed their per-core licensing for Standard Edition and Standard Edition One to per socket pricing.  They claim it was in response to SQL Server, but we all know it's because of the increasing pressure it feels from open source databases like Postgres and MySQL.
  2. MySQL hinted that they would go public before the end of 2007... and then they didn't.  Methinks that they might have been trying to put the heat on Oracle to buy them and wanted to play hardball.  No one stepped up to the plate.  I think they might actually do it in 2008.
  3. Oracle launched Database 11g in July.  Everyone yawned.  And then realized that all the new cool features are add-ons on top of the "arm AND a leg" pricing they charge today.
  4. EnterpriseDB immediately beat Oracle 11g for Best Database Award at LinuxWorld Expo. - A little self-serving?  Absolutely!  It's my blog!!!
  5. Vertica came out of stealth mode...  Didn't you notice?  Maybe you have to look sideways to see them.
  6. FTD Runs Oracle Reports on EnterpriseDB - This story and the  subsequent webcast really woke up the Oracle folks.  google Suddenly, there are 3 Oracle product managers on every EnterpriseDB webcast AND Oracle started buying our trade name in Google Adwords.  Is someone scared?  They should be!
  7. IBM buys SolidDB to compete with Oracle TimesTen In-Memory DB.  This is interesting to me, not so much because of the competition with Oracle, but man oh man, what is MySQL going to do?  I would hate to be an investor right now. 

So, that's seven items I thought were interesting in 2007.  2008 is already heating up to be a fantastic year.  I can't wait to see how it shakes out with all the new things coming...