It’s a powerful value proposition. In fact, MongoDB could be a threat to some of the legacy players like Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL). For the most part, it looks like the database market is facing the most significant changes in decades. As a result, it can be tough for legacy operators to retool their solutions.
https://investorplace.com/ipo-playbook/mongodb-ipo-oracle-corporation-orcl/#.Wc5jxmhSy70
Oracle has the most feature rich, relational database available. It is also significantly more expensive than its closest competitor. However, it comes with a 20%+ support/upgrade contract that is paid annually and Oracle's support has been getting worse while the best "upgrade" features are now split out as "new" products that need to be paid for. In addition, Oracle has the habit of auditing its customers as a way to extract more revenue from them.
As a result, customers are looking for alternatives and are realizing that, in many cases, they don't need many of the features that Oracle has. Microsoft SQL Server has grown in market share as a result, but now customers are finding that Microsoft's licensing practices aren't that great either. Open source options like Postgres and MySQL along with the Cloud-based databases are gaining traction in the relational space. Then there are various NoSQL and NewSQL databases that address data problems where relational databases aren't a good fit. MongoDB is one and they fit specifically within the document oriented NoSQL camp.
While it might be great marketing for an upcoming IPO, Mongo isn't an "Oracle killer" by itself. Oracle is largely doing that to itself through its arrogance and abuse of its customers. Even so, there are still transactional systems of significant scale where the Oracle database is the only real choice. And let's not forget any company that runs Oracle financials, ERP or any other Oracle application where the only offered solution is an Oracle database. Even though alternatives are increasing, growing better all the time and are taking away business that Oracle would like to have, Oracle is still very profitable (although increasingly as a result of draining experience in order to reduce labor costs) and can continue to limp along for a very long time.
PostgreSQL isn't a company but a technology that is open source. Is EnterpriseDB the ones making inroads in your market?
I would say that Postgres and Oracle is more of an Apples to Apples comparison. Comparing MongoDB to Cloudera to Oracle is like comparing Bananas to Oranges to Apples. While MongoDB is now the company name to the technology, Cloudera is a bunch of different open source technologies. You can just download Hadoop or Spark if you want.
I don't know the current situation in the US, but here in EECIS there is no Mongo, Cloudera, etc.. actually there is only one very strong competitor to Oracle, which is PostgreSQL. They are silently eroding a LOT of the Oracle DB in my region, and also know that they are starting to rev up also in old EU. It's not only russian government as highlighted before, many pvt and semi-pvt companies are shifting to PostgreSQL, including the largest CIS bank. This is due not only to political reasons (though still the most important factor), but also for very practical reasons: 90% of the features (and 100% of those used by average russian customers) at a very compelling price, and with an online and onsite support really first class, really nothing to do with crappy Oracle support. At least, this is what my customers are telling me.
disclaimer: my manager told me that I'm in the list of the riffed for the coming round, so most probably you can take the above as the usual grunt of another riffed ex-colleague
Sorry, developers don't make apps for the Oracle database. It's no longer cool. There are more developers using NoSQL, Big Data, and new Cloud database platforms. SQL Server sees more new apps built on it than Oracle. Oracle is a dinosaur that will slowly become extinct. Customers have choice these days and they are increasingly not choosing Oracle.
Yeah. Oracle DB is still a good product but that hardly justifies the huge premium charged.
It will be Death by a 1000 cuts
There is no single "Oracle killer."
With the new cloud pricing for database that is in effect as of this week, pricing is no longer an issue for oracle to compete. DBaaS, Java Cloud Service and SOA Cloud Service have all been reduced about 66% which included support, hardware, hosting, and bandwidth.
These are solid performing platforms that AWS and Microsoft can't compete with.
I say this with the respect as I am also privy to get laid off too.
MongoDB is niche. Cloudera , Hortonworks and MapR have a much better more compelling product and even they can't make money but Cloudera is the most healthy based on latest earnings and they have a better solution compared to MongoDB. Oracle is under attack on all fronts. That's the message here.
Oracle already acquired a noSQL database years ago: BerkeleyDB from Sleepycat. It is well regarded in it's niche, and is in the Oracle Big Data Appliance. They even did a complete rewrite of it into Java.
There is no single "Oracle killer." Mongo DB works fine for some apps, but Mongo is not going to be a successful public company. There is too much competition and too few customers are willing to pay a lot of money for a product that is open source with limited functionality. (Check out the reviews on Glassdoor) Once Mongo is under the public spotlight, it will all be about revenue and earnings, and they will not be able to handle the accountability. Cloudera and Hortonworks are below their IPO price despite a huge runup in the NASDAQ and continue to lose milions every quarter. Sorry, but "we lose money on every subscription we sell, but we'll make it up in volume" is not a strategy. There is going to be a BIG stock market crash for recent IPO companies that are losing money, as there quite simply are too many of such stocks on the market.
Oracle is under a serious threat from several cloud-based data management solutions. Oracle themselves have not invested enough in cloud infrastructure and are offering basically just the same old, expensive Oracle database running as a cloud service. They doubled their already high prices to run Oracle in AWS and Azure in January. The Oracle DB is the most feature-rich of any database, but it is far too expensive, and for most applications, alternatives are available.
My two cents. Mongo is a widget. A good one. Nothing more to it. They will end up like Red Hat, on the fringes. In 5 years or less they will be acquired.
The issue is our management do not even understand why noSQL is important. It is not an apple (SQL) but it is a very important database (noSQL). Customers want it. Oracle should acquire one noSQL database. Mango has been widely used in AWS.
By having Oranges, will it kills off Apples consumption? No, people still eat apples but it does take away some market shares that NoSQL does better. Both have their own purposes and do better. Oracle should be more worried about open source db such as Postgresql as it is catching up very fast and stealing a lot of customers away. Russian government have been moving forward with postgresql. I was a long time Oracle DBA but skill-ing up in postgresql since 4 years ago due to strong market moving towards postgresql. SQL Server has also been taking big chunk of the market from Oracle DB.