Big plans to hire PostgreSQL developers spell shift to open source.
Last Friday the NY Times Bit blog ran a story about some hiring news at Salesforce.com. The company is looking for four or five PostgreSQL developers, but also took the unusual step of announcing that his was just a first step towards hiring 40 or 50 more developers next year who are proficient on PostgreSQL, the open source database. With Oracle competing with Salesforce.com, it doesn’t take too much imagination to connect the dots and assume Salesforce.com is looking to replace the Oracle DB they currently use with PostgreSQL.
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That would be a big win for the open source PostgreSQL community. But, let’s be clear, it would not be the first. PostgreSQL already counts some pretty big names among the organizations that depend on it. Names like Sony Online, Vonage and The Mens Warehouse, for instance. I spoke with Ed Boyajian, CEO of EnterpriseDB, a company specializing in PostgreSQL. Ed says that PostgreSQL has the scalability to handle Salesforce.com. This is in contrast to the author of the Times column, who questioned whether Salesforce.com could really replace Oracle totally.
In terms of other open source databases, if ditching Oracle is the goal, moving to MySQL, which is owned by Oracle, would not be an option, so PostgreSQL is the best alternative. Of course, Salesforce could look at one of the open source NoSQL databases, but those may not be mature enough for the Salesforce.com’s needs, especially around security.
Boyajian also said that after the recent Salesforce.com acquisition, Heroku’s use of PostgreSQL probably had a lot to do with Salesforce looking to invest more in the db. Heroku is a well-known PostgreSQL customer.
Hiring that many new developers probably means that Salesforce.com will be doing most of its PostgreSQL work in house. However, that does not preclude a company like EnterpriseDB helping out. Boyajian said they would be only too happy if asked by Salesforce.com. No matter who does it, there will still be lots of work to be done.
For Oracle, losing Salesforce.com would hurt for a short-term publicity hit, but it would hardly be a rounding error on their revenue charts. Getting into the business of your customers, though. is a sure-fire way to convince them to move to a competitor. I am sure Oracle considered that possibility before jumping in.
In any event, it could be a real coup for the open source DB community striking a blow against Oracle. For Salesforce.com, it could help them garner the goodwill of the open source community.
