Re: PostgreSQL vs. Oracle vs. Microsoft

Randolf,

You probably won't want to hear this, but this decision likely has
nothing to do with brands, models, performance or applications.

You are up against a pro salesman who is likely very good at what he
does.  Instead spewing all sorts of "facts" and statistics to your
client, the salesman is probably trying to figure out what is driving
your client.  Do you know what is driving your client?  Why does he want
to switch?  Why now?  Why not next quarter?  Why not last quarter?  Why
does he want to do the application at all?

Forget the expected answers, e.g., "We need this application to enhance
our competitiveness in the marketplace and increase the blah blah blah."

Why does YOUR CLIENT actually care about any of this?  Is he trying to
impress his boss?  Build his career?  Demonstrate that he can manage a
significant project?  Is he trying to get rid of old code from an
ex-coworker that he hated?  Is it spite?  Pride?  Is he angling for a
bigger budget next year?  Is there someone who will be assigned to this
project that your client wants to lord over?

The list goes on and on, and there is no way that your client is going
to admit the truth and say something like, "The real reason I want to do
this right now is that my childhood rival at XYZ corp just did a project
like this.  I need to boost my ego, so I *MUST* do a bigger project,
right now."

You gotta read between the lines.  How important is this and why?  How
urgent and why?  Who all is behind this project?  What are each
individual's personal motivations?  Does anyone resent a leader on the
team and secretly wish for this project to fail?

Once you know what is actually going on in people's heads, you can begin
to build rapport and influence them.  You can establish your own
credibility and safety with your solution, while planting seeds of doubt
about another solution.

At its core, this decision is (very likely) not at all about RDBMS
performance or anything else related to computing.

Have you asked yourself why you care about one solution over another?
What's driving you to push Pg over MS?  Why?  You might want to start
answering those questions before you even talk to your client.

Good Luck,
Marty

Randolf Richardson wrote:
>  I'm looking for recent performance statistics on PostgreSQL vs. Oracle
> vs. Microsoft SQL Server.  Recently someone has been trying to convince my
> client to switch from SyBASE to Microsoft SQL Server (they originally
> wanted
> to go with Oracle but have since fallen in love with Microsoft).  All this
> time I've been recommending PostgreSQL for cost and stability (my own
> testing
> has shown it to be better at handling abnormal shutdowns and using fewer
> system resources) in addition to true cross-platform compatibility.
>
>         If I can show my client some statistics that PostgreSQL outperforms
> these (I'm more concerned about it beating Oracle because I know that
> Microsoft's stuff is always slower, but I need the information anyway to
> protect my client from falling victim to a 'sales job'), then PostgreSQL
> will
> be the solution of choice as the client has always believed that they
> need a
> high-performance solution.
>
>         I've already convinced them on the usual price, cross-platform
> compatibility, open source, long history, etc. points, and I've been
> assured
> that if the performance is the same or better than Oracle's and Microsoft's
> solutions that PostgreSQL is what they'll choose.
>
>         Thanks in advance.
>
>