[nivla]

> they bill you so you don't have to learn something that's not in their product line

Yes, convenience has a price. Thought that was business 101 or the Walmart strategy.

>their 24x7 support is laughable

Subjective, since my experience is different than yours, similarly you could say the same about Canonical, Red Hat, Percona, heck even Google.

[rbanffy]

> Yes, convenience has a price.

Not that convenient when you move from Windows Server n (based on Windows x) and have to relearn to navigate around the entirely different Windows Server n+3 (which is based on the tablet-friendly Windows x+1).

> heck even Google.

I never had much trouble with Google paid support (I used to work for a company that has a 6+ million user Gmail account), but my most stellar account comes from a bug I found in the ndb library of App Engine while it was still beta. I fired a question to the mailing list and, a couple minutes later, came an answer from Guido Van Rossum. I guess e-mail support can't get any better than that.

[nivla]

>Not that convenient when you move from Windows Server n (based on Windows x) and have to relearn to navigate around the entirely different Windows Server n+3 (which is based on the tablet-friendly Windows x+1).

But a lot more convenient than switching OS. Most FOSS server softwares are written for Linux. Switching to them requires you to learn OS specific commands, switches, and workarounds. It is more convenient to stick to what you are already familiar with.

>I never had much trouble with Google paid support

Exactly. Thanks for proving my previous point that support is subjective. The common consensus is Google's support is terrible to non-existent but in reality it is subjective like others. Other's over exaggerate the lack of Google's support like you did with Microsoft's.

[rbanffy]

> But a lot more convenient than switching OS

And from that point on, you only switch when you want to, not when your database provider decides that in order to get the latest feature you must also upgrade your server OS to a tablet-friendly one... And even when you switch, you realize the new software is just like the old one, just better.

> exaggerate the lack of Google's support like you did with Microsoft's.

A friend of mine worked at a Brazilian bank that made the outlandishly stupid decision to base all backend operations on SQL Server. My horror stories are nothing compared to his.

[jodrellblank]

And even when you switch, you realize the new software is just like the old one, just better.

Isn't that exactly what you want when you upgrade?

A friend of mine worked at a Brazilian bank that made the outlandishly stupid decision to base all backend operations on SQL Server. My horror stories are nothing compared to his.

I guess that "horror story" might be:

"Banco Central do Brasil Boosts Performance, Reporting Speeds, and Scalability

“We saw a 30 percent improvement in data warehouse queries using SQL Server 2012 with the xVelocity feature.... that performance will help our financial analysts get risk data to customers faster.” José Cláudio Mendonça de Freitas, Central Bank of Brazil"

http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2012/...

?

[rbanffy]

> Isn't that exactly what you want when you upgrade?

Isn't it exactly what happens when you upgrade your Windows 7 machine to Windows 8?

As for http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2012/..., lots of interesting results happen when projects can't be declared failures (because it would be a career limiting move: BACEN is a branch of the executive and analogous to the Fed in the US). And no, the bank in question no longer exists. It was Banco Santos.