Hopefully SalesForce will contribute its improvements back to the PostgreSQL community.
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[1] For example, see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4400797
Here is my predictions: Salesforce is will start investing into new technologies and building cool stuff. However, that will not look good on stock price because R&D costs will skyrocket - and our "efficient" stock market does not like long term visions. The stock price will collapse. The board will panic and Larry will "save the day".
And duplication of products was never a problem for Larry: he just kills the one with less customers. For example, in case of BEA and Oracle Application Server: BEA WebLogic replaced Oracle Application Server. In this case, in case of acquisition, Oracle cloud offering will be replaced with Salesforce.
So i do not think you are right about the stock market. The stock market apparently sees something that the accounting numbers do not show.
It's a steaming pile of poo. SOQL is really terrible and don't even get me started on apex, it's like someone took all the worst bits of Java and made them into a programming language. It's really slow to boot, I was using it with a client last week and it was taking 10-20 seconds to load any page.
I also really don't get how they're not making more money given the prices they charge.
Expect nothing at all out of them.
Also, it is highly entertaining that most PostgreSQL news here tend to dwell to MySQL.
PostgreSQL is quickly becoming the main go-to alternative for people who are obsessed with the hip-now shiny thing. These are some of the same folks who will mindlessly advocate zsh over bash, tmux over screen, htop over top, and ack over grep.
And htop is really nice.
Nice sound bite but PostgreSQL (as we know) was first released around 1996.
In my experience, everyone who tries PostgreSQL loves it and sticks with it. That doesn't make it a mindless choice, or the "hip-now shiny thing." It does mean that Oracle's decisions are encouraging people to look at alternatives, and that the alternative is, in fact, often better than what they're currently using.
It's unfortunate that your second paragraph is either trollish or ill-informed. Sure, there is a part of group-think about Postgres' popularity in some communities, but Postgres has a number of advantages over MySQL (though I'd say MySQL has a better multi-server story). Implying this plays little part in its growing popularity is condescending.