[PLUG-TALK] Re: [PLUG] Securing Initial Accounts in MySQL

[Rich Shepard]

On Sat, 3 Dec 2005, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

> If I came to you and asked you to write me a CRM application, no matter how
> much I was willing to pay, and no matter how good such an application would
> be, you'd probably turn me down. At least I *hope* you'd turn me down.
> Because it would take your focus away from the core of your business, and
> place you in *direct* competition with big people who hate you. :)

Ed,

   I understand your points very well. For me, there's a large difference
between having to maintain a dozen different scripting languages on my
systems and different database systems. That's just me.

> I think SugarCRM is in the same position. They're not a big ERP/CRM player
> like J.D. Edwards (excuse me, PeopleSoft,) PeopleSoft (excuse me, Oracle,)
> or Siebel (excuse me, Oracle,) or Microsoft or Sun. Even something that
> *looks* simple, like a back-end port from MySQL to PostgreSQL, could
> require many months of programmer time, especially if the original
> implementors were at all careless, and fell into the trap of using the
> "extended subset of the standard" that nearly all software vendors provide.

   My model for this type of application is SQL-Ledger. It is also in
competition with a whole bunch of free and commercial accounting apps. But,
it supports postgres, sqlite, oracle (I think), and DB2 as database backends;
apache, thttpd, and another http server, plus just about any browser you can
think of (including lynx and links). And, it's written and maintained by one
guy (as far as I can tell). Flexible? You bet! And I gladly pay him --
voluntarily -- the annual fee for the current manuals and any direct support
I need. SQL-Ledger is a very complete accounting system designed for vertical
integration from manufacturing through distribution to retail POS. But, it
also works just fine for us service businesses and there's a very supportive
mail list.

> It comes down to this question: would you pay *twice* as much for SugarCRM if 
> it supported both PostgreSQL and MySQL? Or would you simply say, "Never mind 
> -- I'll install MySQL".

   You bet I'd pay twice as much! Heck, I'd even pay something. :-)

Rich

-- 
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.               |   Author of "Quantifying Environmental
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