There's no phone number on the PostgreSQL.org open-source database website. And for EnterpriseDB chief executive Andy Astor, whose company makes money from a PostgreSQL-based product, that's been a problem.
On Tuesday, Astor's company launched a site called the EnterpriseDB Postgres Resource Center, which gives interested parties a phone number to call and, Astor hopes, other useful items.
The site's launch coincides with this week's LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco and includes a package of software tools meant to make it easier for business customers to install the open-source database. The site also offers technical information to developers.
The software package includes the PostgreSQL database, along with a multi-operating system installer, administration tools and a text-search add-on. EnterpriseDB intends to offer support, training and installation services around the database.
The larger hope in setting up the site and database bundle is to create more critical mass around PostgreSQL, Astor said.
PostgreSQL is an enterprise-class database, but it faces competition from other database alternatives, both open source and proprietary.
The new website "creates a centre around which the market can develop and drive adoption of PostgreSQL, which, frankly, has been slow to develop because there is nobody at the centre. This is us trying to create a centre," said Astor. "We hope it will become the de facto open-source database distribution."
EnterpriseDB Advanced Server, which is built on top of PostgreSQL, will remain a separate product from the open-source distribution available on the site.
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New Jersey-based EnterpriseDB has signed up about 125 customers that have bought EntepriseDB Advanced Server as a replacement for Oracle.
The company has built compatibility with Oracle, the most widely-used corporate database, and sells it as an enterprise-grade alternative at a fraction of the cost, according to Astor.
EnterpriseDB on Tuesday also extended its product line with a version of its database tuned specifically for large databases used in business-intelligence applications.
Called GridSQL for EnterpriseDB Advanced Server, the product is designed for analysing large amounts of data across several parallel servers.
Another open-source company, Greenplum, has also developed a specialised edition of PostgreSQL for high-end business-intelligence applications.
Talkback
My reading of this is ...
Get a load of VC investment;
Hire anybody on the PostgreSQL team who's available to work on your proprietised version of PostgreSQL;
Try to strangle development on the original project thereby boosting the need for customers to look at your software;
Relise that your business model is all wrong and that nobody wants to buy your proprietised software;
Use your recent hires to start land-grabbing the PostgreSQL space;
Hope to hell that the VCs don't pull the plug before your salespeople see their first commission cheque
... but of course I could be wrong.