PostgreSQL: taking e-business up a notch

摘要

Database management systems are central to Web-based businesses, constituting an $11.1 billion market in 1999, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC). Large proprietary vendors currently rule the marketplace, with Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft capturing more than 70 percent of sales last year. But open-source database systems are steadily growing more powerful, exhibiting performance and functionality that will soon equal that of the proprietary giants. Each of the three leading open-source database programs—PostgreSQL, InterBase, and MySQL-has an established user base and is well suited to specific business computing tasks. But PostgreSQL is arguably the most advanced relational database of the open-source options, and the best positioned to challenge the supremacy of the commercial leaders.