EnterpriseDB, which provides enterprise-level open source PostgreSQL database services, has announced its completed a round of funding, adding KT (formerly Korea Telecom) and TransLink Capital to its list of investors. Here’s the story.
While the company didn’t disclose the financial terms of the investments, EnterpriseDB’s press release says that TransLink Capital co-founder Jay Eum has joined their Board of Directors. At TransLink, Eum is also responsible for managing investments in companies like Carbonite and XSigo, so he has experience in the IT space.
Meanwhile, KT, which provided a “strategic investment” rather than full VC funding, says that they were interested in EnterpriseDB for their dedication to the open source philosophy.
“We’ve decided to partner with EnterpriseDB because we share its mission of promoting open source and PostgreSQL solutions that provide freedom from high priced vendor lock-in,” said Sang-Hong Lee, executive vice president, Technology Strategy Office of KT, in a prepared statement.
With veterans like MySQL’s Karen Tegan Padir on their team, and with companies like IBM and Red Hat investing in its future, EnterpriseDB remains one of the most intriguing open source companies to watch in the second half of 2010.
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EnterpriseDB is not open source company at all. They just take BSD licensed code, add their closed extensions and then sell it as proprietary product under very restrictive EULA. EnterpriseDB doesn’t have any open source products, and their code contribution to PostgreSQL is negligible. They have no “dedication to the open source philosophy”, but they are known for their shady business practices: http://www.dbms2.com/2010/06/26/netezza-migrator/
If someone needs good database, it is better to use real PostgreSQL and avoid EDB and their PostgresMINUS. For support, Red Hat offers some Postgres support if you use RHEL Advanced Platform.
Yepo: The VAR Guy welcomes constructive criticism in the comments area. But our resident blogger also pushes for full disclosure. Are you associated with any EnterpriseDB rivals? Thanks for reading.
-TVG
The VAR Guy: No, I am not associated with any of EDB competitors in any way. I would note that if it was the case
.
In fact, I am PostgreSQL user at work and we were considered switching from vanilla open source PostureSQL to EDB. But then we found out what I described above (and heard some testimonials from ex-EDB users), so we steer clear of EDB for those reasons.
Other than that, personally, I am somewhat FLOSS fan and I don’t like companies who say they are open source, while in fact they are not. Proprietary software is proprietary software, whether it is based on open source or not, it locks users into single vendor, and it shouldn’t be confused with FLOSS.
So that would be full disclosure.
Yepo: Thanks for your additional disclosures. Our resident blogger isn’t endorsing your views, but he appreciates your decision to share more background.
-TG
I totally agree with the first commend made by yepo. EnterpriseDB is Enterprise, and definitely not open source.
Besides the well-known PostgreSQL there is also CUBRID DBMS (http://www.cubrid.org), currently getting very popular especially here in Korea. CUBRID is completely free and open source DB hosted at SF.net https://sourceforge.net/projects/cubrid. Looking at their development pace (one stable release every 2 months), I would say, CUBRID is very aggressive, promoting itself as the most optimized open source DBMS for the Web.
It’s already eight months my company switched from MySQL to CUBRID with professional support from the original developers. I should say, these guys really know what they do and what they create. As we provide the mission-critical services, it is important for us to get issues fixed asap. CUBRID support’s response time is no more than several hours, while previous MySQL support came alive in about two to five days.
Though we spent much time to familiarize our team with CUBRID, I think that decision was wise.
Hi. I’m currently doing a research on EnterpriseDB and would like to get in touch with Yepo and Kadishmal regarding their negative experience and opinion on EDB. So far, except for the link Yepo gave (which doesn’t give much detail), so far I cannot find negative testimonials on it.
Of course, I would also like to hear the (positive) opinion of TVG and the blog author.
Would appreciate if you can send me a message at paulvillarazo [at] gmail [dot] com. Thanks
I would suggest surfing StackOverflow. I am sure you will find lots of feedback and testimonials for all kinds of products. Just search for your keyword. I often refer to SO.
FYI I search stackoverflow as Kadishmal suggested and found nothing interesting. Searched for both “enterprisedb” and “postgresql plus”. Also, in the link Yepo gave, the author said EnterpriseDB has shady business practices offers nothing to back up his statement.
The fact that Postgresql Plus is not open source hardly matters in my research – I’m more interested in actual user experiences. Thanks.
Paul@8: The VAR Guy does not review vendor products but generally speaking he’s heard positive customer feedback from EnterpriseDB. But on the channel front EnterpriseDB has been a bit silent lately. Check in with the company directly and ask to speak with five customer references. The company tends to be very responsive to such inquiries. And The VAR Guy thinks you’ll find the customers refreshingly honest about their successes and some of the challenges they’ve faced.
-TVG