11 ms·

MariaDB ditches products and staff in restructure

92 points by eatonphil 3y ago

maxxxxxx 3y ago
Surprising to see them ditch their cloud product. Especially considering the number of startups out there based around offering a cloud database.
- ilyt 3y ago
  No wonder, if you outsource management of DB to someone else why on earth you'd want to have MySQL/MariaDB ?
  - throwaway60722 3y ago
    Many self-hosted business apps require PHP and MySQL.
  - xiasongh 3y ago
    What's wrong with MySQL and MariaDB?
    - wahnfrieden 3y ago
      mostly memes from twenty years ago
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    Why wouldn't you? It's widely supported, and tons of software is written on top of it -- requires it.
- mardifoufs 3y ago
  Yes I thought managed databases were the holy grail of database monetization. How bad were the cloud services that they were providing? They seemed to put quite a lot of effort into that part of their offering too.
  - redwood 3y ago
    There are literally a dozens of SQL database service companies.. yes it's a large market but at a point you're just competing for fumes
wly_cdgr 3y ago
No coming back from destroying this much trust, RIP
- kadomony 3y ago
  What trust did they break exactly? Genuinely naive here. Did they woefully underdeliver on their cloud offering's promises?
  - tyingq 3y ago
    Some amount of customers bought into the cloud offerings, which are now being sunset. Meaning those customers now have a forced migration to something else. Will they now trust the company and pay for enterprise licenses (and figure out how to host it), or is there enough distrust that they migrate to something else like AWS RDS/Mysql?
    - kadomony 3y ago
      Ah, I misinterpreted the top comment, then. I thought this was a strategic move on their part to salvage trust elsewhere. You're right; this is like pulling the rug out from under guests you invited into your home and telling them to seek shelter elsewhere.
  - hipratham 3y ago
    >What trust did they break exactly? If you read article, Samsung.
kadomony 3y ago
CMO terminated the same day, so I'm assuming their marketing department largely was gutted as well while they figure out how to rebuild their image. It looks like they're taking the route of just focusing on enterprise customers, which seems risky given the competition in that space is already fairly entrenched and dominant. Personally, I don't see them lasting another 5 years. At least, not thriving.
- ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
  Who is willing to pay for using a DB besides enterprise customers?
  - bushbaba 3y ago
    Especially when AWS, Azure, and GCP all have managed sql offerings.
    - Spivak 3y ago
      That's just paying for the DB through a vending machine. You don't have a relationship with the DB vendor but the cloud vendor absolutely does.
  - nickstinemates 3y ago
    Thousands of companies all over the world.
- pengaru 3y ago
  If they were focusing on enterprise customers they wouldn't have terminated the Xpand(formerly Clustrix) engineering team.
gigatexal 3y ago
Will SkySQL tech or Xpand be open sourced?
- convolvatron 3y ago
  I'm personally vested in xpand...I don't know what state its in now, but it would kind of suck if it just got put in a dusty cardboard box in the back of a storage unit.
- pengaru 3y ago
  Good questions. It's clearly part of the problem that practically nobody in this thread even know WTF Xpand(formerly Clustrix) is, and are judging MariaDB Inc's actions largely on a "why MySQL fork" basis. My ex-colleagues from Clustrix who stayed on-board through the MariaDB acquisition have all been recently #opentowork and talking of getting terminated on LinkedIn. Not marketing people, these were the engineers maintaining Xpand. The Xpand/Clustrix tech is far more interesting than any of MariaDB/MySQL/Postgres, but proprietary.
jarym 3y ago
> The company won praise from analysts for the engineering behind the products. A bit like a McDonalds fan praising an upmarket restaurant on the quality of their food. Ok, bit of a cheapshot. In seriousness, I never fully understood MariaDB - there may have been a concern about Oracle's plans for MySQL but was that really enough to start a for-profit corporation? And in the meantime, the big cloud vendors did a decent job of offering their own SQL options. And then we have Postgres - it was always technologically superior to MySQL but over the past few years its become as easy to deploy and run as MySQL was. I just don't see what segment or differentiator remained for MariaDB as a for-profit corporation.
- ekianjo 3y ago
  MariaDB is for companies that rely on MySQL and don't want to migrate to a non-MySQL solution, for various reasons.
- zmxz 3y ago
  [flagged]
- traceroute66 3y ago
  > concern about Oracle's plans for MySQL but was that really enough to start a for-profit corporation Perhaps even more so because Percona already pre-dated MariaDB. Also as I understand it Percona is much closer to Oracle MySQL than MariaDB because MariaDB was a point-in-time fork on 5.5.
- samlambert 3y ago
  I see the “Postgres is technology superior” take on hn all the time. Can you actually back that up? Can you explain why the dozens or so Postgres scale up solutions don’t use real Postgres? Or why anyone at scale with Postgres migrates away? https://www.uber.com/en-US/blog/postgres-to-mysql-migration/ https://www.uber.com/en-US/blog/postgres-to-mysql-migration/ This outage would have been a lot less likely with MySQL because of redo logs which MySQL has had for a decade. But Postgres replication is under developed. https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2017/02/10/postmortem-of-database-outage-of-january-31/ https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2017/02/10/postmortem-of-datab... Facebook has evaluated every database on the planet and still uses MySQL. https://engineering.fb.com/2021/07/22/core-infra/mysql/ https://engineering.fb.com/2021/07/22/core-infra/mysql/ When MySQL has more users, can scale significantly more, runs some of the largest sites on earth, and even lends its storage engine to other databases like Dynamo you should backup your claims that Postgres is technically superior. Please.
lukevp 3y ago
So just price MariaDB 20% cheaper than MySQL and ride off into the sunset on enterprise earnings? No innovation needed. I wonder if their PostgreSQL compatibility layer can be used with MariaDB outside of the cloud, and if that has any benefits.
jeo123 3y ago
Founder pride issue. Started another MySQL once out of Oracle. He should have focus on improving MySQL+PostGreSQL+whatever NoSQL out there. Instead, he wasted resources to build another instance of MySQL. But to his credit though, his action forced Oracle to behave well with MySQL and not decimate it like OpenOffice, once upon a time.
- mathnode 3y ago
  This is mariadb.com the enterprise branch. Nothing to do with the open source foundation at mariadb.org, which is unaffected by this.
  - evanelias 3y ago
    "Unaffected" isn't clear yet. The vast majority of MariaDB server commits come from employees of MariaDB Plc, the commercial entity described by the article. See https://mariadb.org/mariadb-contribution-statistics-june-2023/#year-to-date https://mariadb.org/mariadb-contribution-statistics-june-202...
politelemon 3y ago
Why did they decide to go public, why not continue operating as a small company with a focused product set?
- femiagbabiaka 3y ago
  This is the operative question. I think the answer can only be greed.
ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
The free MariaDB software is awesome. Because of that, I am very curious about their business. But looking at their financials, I get the feeling they have a "too much money" problem. They are spending about $3M per month on "Research and development". They are spending about $2M per month on "Sales and marketing". They are spending about $2M per month on "General and administrative". At a company valuation of under $50M and monthly revenue of under $5M. Cutting down on the spending is probably the right thing. Spending millions per month on sales and marketing and having only $5M MRR to show for it seems like the marketing is not effective. Spending millions per month on development and not having a killer product that sells itself seems like the development is not effective.
mvdtnz 3y ago
> Earlier this week, the company also announced a new finance package [PDF]. RP Ventures has agreed to a $26.5 million "senior secured promissory note" – a form of credit agreement – at an interest rate of 10 percent per annum. > The facility will be used to pay off a European Investment Bank loan, with a maturity date of October 11, 2023. > The new VC loan has a maturity date to a maximum of January 10, 2024. I'm no business expert but this strikes me as the corporate equivalent of taking payday loans to make your car payment.

92 points by eatonphil 3y ago

Surprising to see them ditch their cloud product. Especially considering the number of startups out there based around offering a cloud database.

ilyt 3y ago
No wonder, if you outsource management of DB to someone else why on earth you'd want to have MySQL/MariaDB ?
- throwaway60722 3y ago
  Many self-hosted business apps require PHP and MySQL.
- xiasongh 3y ago
  What's wrong with MySQL and MariaDB?
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    mostly memes from twenty years ago
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Why wouldn't you? It's widely supported, and tons of software is written on top of it -- requires it.
mardifoufs 3y ago
Yes I thought managed databases were the holy grail of database monetization. How bad were the cloud services that they were providing? They seemed to put quite a lot of effort into that part of their offering too.
- redwood 3y ago
  There are literally a dozens of SQL database service companies.. yes it's a large market but at a point you're just competing for fumes

wly_cdgr 3y ago

No coming back from destroying this much trust, RIP

kadomony 3y ago
What trust did they break exactly? Genuinely naive here. Did they woefully underdeliver on their cloud offering's promises?
- tyingq 3y ago
  Some amount of customers bought into the cloud offerings, which are now being sunset. Meaning those customers now have a forced migration to something else. Will they now trust the company and pay for enterprise licenses (and figure out how to host it), or is there enough distrust that they migrate to something else like AWS RDS/Mysql?
  - kadomony 3y ago
    Ah, I misinterpreted the top comment, then. I thought this was a strategic move on their part to salvage trust elsewhere. You're right; this is like pulling the rug out from under guests you invited into your home and telling them to seek shelter elsewhere.
- hipratham 3y ago
  >What trust did they break exactly? If you read article, Samsung.

kadomony 3y ago

CMO terminated the same day, so I'm assuming their marketing department largely was gutted as well while they figure out how to rebuild their image. It looks like they're taking the route of just focusing on enterprise customers, which seems risky given the competition in that space is already fairly entrenched and dominant. Personally, I don't see them lasting another 5 years. At least, not thriving.

ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
Who is willing to pay for using a DB besides enterprise customers?
- bushbaba 3y ago
  Especially when AWS, Azure, and GCP all have managed sql offerings.
  - Spivak 3y ago
    That's just paying for the DB through a vending machine. You don't have a relationship with the DB vendor but the cloud vendor absolutely does.
- nickstinemates 3y ago
  Thousands of companies all over the world.
pengaru 3y ago
If they were focusing on enterprise customers they wouldn't have terminated the Xpand(formerly Clustrix) engineering team.

gigatexal 3y ago

Will SkySQL tech or Xpand be open sourced?

convolvatron 3y ago
I'm personally vested in xpand...I don't know what state its in now, but it would kind of suck if it just got put in a dusty cardboard box in the back of a storage unit.
pengaru 3y ago
Good questions. It's clearly part of the problem that practically nobody in this thread even know WTF Xpand(formerly Clustrix) is, and are judging MariaDB Inc's actions largely on a "why MySQL fork" basis. My ex-colleagues from Clustrix who stayed on-board through the MariaDB acquisition have all been recently #opentowork and talking of getting terminated on LinkedIn. Not marketing people, these were the engineers maintaining Xpand. The Xpand/Clustrix tech is far more interesting than any of MariaDB/MySQL/Postgres, but proprietary.

jarym 3y ago

> The company won praise from analysts for the engineering behind the products. A bit like a McDonalds fan praising an upmarket restaurant on the quality of their food. Ok, bit of a cheapshot. In seriousness, I never fully understood MariaDB - there may have been a concern about Oracle's plans for MySQL but was that really enough to start a for-profit corporation? And in the meantime, the big cloud vendors did a decent job of offering their own SQL options. And then we have Postgres - it was always technologically superior to MySQL but over the past few years its become as easy to deploy and run as MySQL was. I just don't see what segment or differentiator remained for MariaDB as a for-profit corporation.

ekianjo 3y ago
MariaDB is for companies that rely on MySQL and don't want to migrate to a non-MySQL solution, for various reasons.
zmxz 3y ago
[flagged]
traceroute66 3y ago
> concern about Oracle's plans for MySQL but was that really enough to start a for-profit corporation Perhaps even more so because Percona already pre-dated MariaDB. Also as I understand it Percona is much closer to Oracle MySQL than MariaDB because MariaDB was a point-in-time fork on 5.5.
samlambert 3y ago
I see the “Postgres is technology superior” take on hn all the time. Can you actually back that up? Can you explain why the dozens or so Postgres scale up solutions don’t use real Postgres? Or why anyone at scale with Postgres migrates away? https://www.uber.com/en-US/blog/postgres-to-mysql-migration/ https://www.uber.com/en-US/blog/postgres-to-mysql-migration/ This outage would have been a lot less likely with MySQL because of redo logs which MySQL has had for a decade. But Postgres replication is under developed. https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2017/02/10/postmortem-of-database-outage-of-january-31/ https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2017/02/10/postmortem-of-datab... Facebook has evaluated every database on the planet and still uses MySQL. https://engineering.fb.com/2021/07/22/core-infra/mysql/ https://engineering.fb.com/2021/07/22/core-infra/mysql/ When MySQL has more users, can scale significantly more, runs some of the largest sites on earth, and even lends its storage engine to other databases like Dynamo you should backup your claims that Postgres is technically superior. Please.

lukevp 3y ago

So just price MariaDB 20% cheaper than MySQL and ride off into the sunset on enterprise earnings? No innovation needed. I wonder if their PostgreSQL compatibility layer can be used with MariaDB outside of the cloud, and if that has any benefits.

jeo123 3y ago

Founder pride issue. Started another MySQL once out of Oracle. He should have focus on improving MySQL+PostGreSQL+whatever NoSQL out there. Instead, he wasted resources to build another instance of MySQL. But to his credit though, his action forced Oracle to behave well with MySQL and not decimate it like OpenOffice, once upon a time.

mathnode 3y ago
This is mariadb.com the enterprise branch. Nothing to do with the open source foundation at mariadb.org, which is unaffected by this.
- evanelias 3y ago
  "Unaffected" isn't clear yet. The vast majority of MariaDB server commits come from employees of MariaDB Plc, the commercial entity described by the article. See https://mariadb.org/mariadb-contribution-statistics-june-2023/#year-to-date https://mariadb.org/mariadb-contribution-statistics-june-202...

politelemon 3y ago

Why did they decide to go public, why not continue operating as a small company with a focused product set?

femiagbabiaka 3y ago
This is the operative question. I think the answer can only be greed.

ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago

The free MariaDB software is awesome. Because of that, I am very curious about their business. But looking at their financials, I get the feeling they have a "too much money" problem. They are spending about $3M per month on "Research and development". They are spending about $2M per month on "Sales and marketing". They are spending about $2M per month on "General and administrative". At a company valuation of under $50M and monthly revenue of under $5M. Cutting down on the spending is probably the right thing. Spending millions per month on sales and marketing and having only $5M MRR to show for it seems like the marketing is not effective. Spending millions per month on development and not having a killer product that sells itself seems like the development is not effective.

mvdtnz 3y ago

> Earlier this week, the company also announced a new finance package [PDF]. RP Ventures has agreed to a $26.5 million "senior secured promissory note" – a form of credit agreement – at an interest rate of 10 percent per annum. > The facility will be used to pay off a European Investment Bank loan, with a maturity date of October 11, 2023. > The new VC loan has a maturity date to a maximum of January 10, 2024. I'm no business expert but this strikes me as the corporate equivalent of taking payday loans to make your car payment.