Ashish Patel

On November 17, 2005, I was astonished to find that Sun Microsystems is backing one of my favourite databases, PostgreSQL .

Sun announced that they are going to help tweak up the database to work with Solaris and for other “high-end” capabilities (whatever that means, but atleast they are starting to support it). Executives also said:

When it updates Solaris 10 next year, Sun will bundle PostgreSQL with its operating system. The pricing for database support will be included in the cost of the Solaris contract, executives said.

Good job!

You may have read on the internet that IBM might be releasing a free version of its DB2 database next year. This comes as an answer to Oracle’s and Microsoft’s commitment to releasing “express” editions of their databases for free too.

I think its great that all these competitive products are releasing free editions for people to use. I say this because in the past when I developed applications I always stuck with one product until it just couldn’t do what I wanted to do. I started with MySQL then later moved to PostgreSQL, which I have stuck with for almost 3 years now. It has been hard to actually evaluate how commercial database products compare to the two open source databases that I have used because it just comes down to cost.

Having a mix of available databased from IBM, Oracle, Microsoft with the PostgreSQL, MySQL database systems will really help people determine what is good to use with their solutions.

One must not forget that IBM has made an opensource database called Cloudscape available for a while now. This database system is unique in the sense that there is a no-charge license with product support! Where in the world can you find something like this! You can “write once, deploy anywhere” and it only has a 20MB footprint - making it perfect for those light-weight portable solutions. Best of all, it integrates with Eclipse. IBM had great success with Cloudscape that they are even open sourcing it under the Apache Software Foundation (read here).

You’ve heard of Google Earth, but have you heard of Google Moon?

1. Why did you do this?

Because we couldn’t think of a better way to commemorate the first lunar landing, which occurred on July 20, 1969, than to give our users an opportunity to surf around the lunar surface themselves.

2. Why can’t I see the surface in more detail?

Google Moon only has as much data as NASA was able to give us, so there are limitations (for now) on how close to the surface we can zoom.

3. What happens if I try to zoom too close?

Well, you’ll have to go and find out, won’t you?

4. Is Google Moon a result of your Copernicus initiative?

Glad you asked, and yes, the development of our lunar hosting and research center continues apace. We usually don’t announce future products in advance, but in this case, yes, we can confirm that on July 20th, 2069, in honor of the 100th anniversary of mankind’s first manned lunar landing, Google will fully integrate Google Local search capabilities into Google Moon, which will allow our users to quickly find lunar business addresses, numbers and hours of operation, among other valuable forms of Moon-oriented local information.

I was reading on the net this morning and came across an interesting piece of evidence that suggests Microsoft has something daring against Apple.

MSN has just released Virtual Earth, similar to Google Maps. If you’re curious like I am try finding Apple’s HQ in Cupertino on both. You’ll find that MSN Virtual Earth doesn’t have Apple’s HQ, where as Google Maps does!

MSN’s version is here and Google’s is here.

What is Microsoft up to?