March 31st, 2009
Ingres puts one foot in front of the other
News, on this as on any beat, comes from controversy. Light, not heat. Man bites dog, not dog bites man.
But in the real world of business, success comes from just putting one foot in front of the other, moving steadily forward, no matter how hard the wind blows. (Like this leatherback turtle, tagged recently in Costa Rica and offered by Jeff DiNunzio.)
It’s finance and legal conflict, not sales and alliances, that wins headlines, even on beats like this where we should know better.
So let’s take a moment to consider the case of Ingres.
Ingres offers an implementation of database software which shares an early history with PostgreSQL. The sales pitch is it’s an enterprise-class, open source database system. Oracle for the price of mySQL. (Stop yawning.)
The folks at Ingres work hard to make this exciting, to “get in the papers” (or the blogs) because that presence demonstrates momentum. It’s considered valuable. There’s no such thing as bad publicity. Call me what you want, just spell my name right.
It may be journalistic heresy to say this, but it ain’t necessarily so. We can’t all be rabbits. Let’s hear it for the turtle.
Over the last few weeks I’ve received a succession of small releases from Ingres, and calls for coverage:
- A partnership with the Wilken Group of Germany in the telecomm market.
- A partnership with Biveroni Batschelet Partners of Switzerland in the financial market.
- Being listed as an “up and comer,” along with outfits that get a lot more ink, by a venture capital firm.
- An alliance with Open Tech Works in the government market.
By themselves none of these are worth a mention. Even collectively they are easy to lose in the agate. But consider the headwinds Ingres, and all of us, are facing right now. Deals are tough to do. Ingres does deals.
So take a moment, today, and give a turtle its props. Slow and steady can win the race too. As Ingres is proving.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 03/31/09
