Re: A within the next day or two request for a PostgreSQL contact from advocacy.postgresql.org

Mr. Zagar,

> The nature of the request : I work as a developer in a medium large
> corporation \(cca 400 employees\) retail oriented\. We are about to buy and
> migrate to Microsoft SQL Server on a MS 2000 Server platform\. I\'m
> interested in a other possibilities like PosrgreSQL\. Can you please send
> me pricelist, license pricing and if possible some cost-bennefit
> comparation of PostgreSQL vs\. MS SQL\. With my best regards, G\. Zagar\.

You'll like our pricing: Free!
That's right, free. Further, you can run PostgreSQL on the Linux or BSD
server operating systems, which are also free.

How is this possible? It's Open Source software, which means that it was
developed by programmers and companies around the world who were not paid
directly for our work. As a result, you pay nothing for the software. We
developed it becase we wanted to use it, not to charge you for it.
For more about open source: http://www.opensource.org/

While we do not have any PostgreSQL project members in Croatia that I know of,
I do know some from another important Open Source project: OpenOffice.org, a
free office suite. Please tell me if you want them to contact you so that
they can explain Open Source.

I cannot connect you to any published feature comparison of MS SQL Server and
PostgreSQL, mostly because full comparisons of Open Source and proprietary
software in the press are rare, and database comparisons non-existant.
However, I am both a former certified MS SQL Server admin, and currently
build numerous software packages on top of PostgreSQL, so let me give you a
quick run-down of the advantages of each platform:

MS SQL Server: Intergrates well with other Microsoft Products
Integrates well with vendor software built on Microsoft Platforms

PostgreSQL: Integrates well with other Free and Open Source software.
Free!
Extensive online community offers peer-to-peer support
as good as commercial paid support.
Commercial support available from a few companies for emergencies.
Extensive support for international standards, such as Unicode and ANSI-SQL.
Supports a larger set of database objects than MS SQL Server.
Better database tuning and monitoring tools than MS SQL Server.
Better security than MS SQL Server.

Hey, maybe I should write a paper on this?

--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco