Toad World

For the past few months I have been involved in researching cloud databases, Hadoop, NoSQL, specialized dbs and starting to build Quest’s presence in this nascent space. I’ve been working closely with Guy Harrison, who’s been around the RDBMS world for a long time, and he told me from the get-go that this space is different.

In some way, shape or form, whether in sales, marketing or product management I have been in RDBMS land for 10 years now. Marketing has never been easy in that space; you always face the database vendor themselves, and an array of small companies, so clear product positioning, aiming your message at an identified target audience and competitive differentatiors are vital to how effective your marketing is. So…imagine my surprise entering a space, where marketing doesn’t rely at all on identifying a clear target audience, product positioning, or competitive differentiators. All it relies on now is being in the space. If you’re in it, you get the marketing mojo going, if you’re not you don’t.

We’re just coming off a very successful launch of Toad for Cloud Databases by any measure; we have had more requests for interviews, more coverage, more re-tweets, more beta downloads in the first two weeks since we went live than any product I’ve ever been involved in. There’s a thirst for knowledge in this space that’s staggering, and we want to be there to quench that thirst.

I am having so much fun learning all about these evolving technologies, and a bit of advice to our traditional RDBMS audience; download Toad for Cloud Databases, spin up an Amazon account and go have a play. You’ll be glad you did.