| Question: Not long ago, you announced that IBM | | | | Question: If I may ask, did EnterpriseDB approach |
| joined existing investors for EnterpriseDB's third round | | | | IBM, or did IBM approach EnterpriseDB? |
| of venture funding. Why did IBM get involved this | | | | Astor: I think it's fair to say that IBM contacted us to |
| time? | | | | engage in partnership conversations, which we |
| Astor: IBM does not typically invest in companies. | | | | engaged in happily, and when we let them know that |
| They do invest in open source projects from time to | | | | we were raising a Series C, they had some interest |
| time, but I think they saw an opportunity with us. | | | | in participating in that. That is pretty rare, by the |
| They've got their Linux bet made. They've got their | | | | way. They don't generally invest in companies. |
| Apache bet made. They've got their Geronimo bet | | | | But we were very interested, frankly, in having their |
| and their Eclipse bet, all the way up the stack, but | | | | brand behind us. I think it helps tremendously for a |
| they haven't really made a statement about the | | | | young company to be endorsed, if you will, by IBM, |
| database yet. | | | | and they get to participate in a very rapidly growing |
| With Sun's recent acquisition of MySQL and the fact | | | | commercial open source company at a bargain price. |
| that IBM is a big fan of truly enterprise-class open | | | | Question: What does having IBM's brand behind it do |
| source technology - particularly when it's mature and | | | | for EnterpriseDB? What doors does it open? |
| there's relatively little differentiation among vendors, I | | | | Astor: Recently, MySQL, which is also a very small |
| think it just made a whole lot of sense for IBM to | | | | company but somewhat bigger than EnterpriseDB, |
| place a bet and take a small stake in EnterpriseDB to | | | | was acquired by a Fortune 500 company. That, I |
| get involved and impact the Postgres community. | | | | think, changes the way the market looks at MySQL. |
| EnterpriseDB has emerged over the last couple of | | | | Similarly, I think having IBM invest in EnterpriseDB |
| years as the leading Postgres company. I say that | | | | changes the way the market looks at us. I think it's |
| because we have more core team members and | | | | fair to say that the open source database space is |
| committers and thought leaders, and we are | | | | really now a two-horse race. The press that we've |
| developing more features for the community than | | | | gotten and the interest that we've gotten since we |
| any other company. Looking for a way to invest in | | | | made the announcement is indicative of a different |
| Postgres, I think it just made sense for IBM to come | | | | place in the market. |
| and chat with us. | | | | |