A Special Announcement from Andy, Brian, and Steve
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Let me add my congratulations and thanks to the three of you.
Your site has been (and hopefully will continue to be) an invaluable resource. Having been a serial-entrepreneur myself, I believe I understand some of your emotions (typically a mixed bag). But from what I have read, you have been careful to choose a good steward.
To Redgate- good luck with this investment, please remember that it is the community as a whole that 'makes' this site.
Best to Andy and Brian in their new endeavors, don't be strangers to the site.
Regards,
Tim
- Congratulations guys! This is my GO-TO site for SQL answers. I really hope it stays that way. I wonder if I'm the only one who thinks this - I might actually miss some of the advertising. More than once, I've followed a link for an advertised item and found it to either be very useful or expand my knowledge of the SQL world. I felt that you were always very responsible with the ads you accepted. If the only thing I see is Red-Gate from now on, I will have to wonder what else I'm not hearing about (especially since I have always chosen their competitors products over theirs).
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From what I know of the folks at Red-Gate, I believe they bought the site because they love it the way it is. They are avid readers of the site, and admire the contributions made by the community. I've been writing articles for Red-Gate for a while on Simple-Talk and they've always been most encouraging and enthusiastic. I've never felt inhibited in expressing my own opinions on Simple-Talk as they are firm believers in complete editorial independence.
Best wishes,
Phil Factor -
Congrats to you three. It's good to see people make some serious green from something that they love. That's the good side - just don't wind up like Wally Amos.
Thanks Dan, for your good words there. My big fear is that this site would become a shill for Red-Gate.
ATBCharles Kincaid
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Thanks Guys for all your help over the last couple of years. I have gone from total SQL newbie to secret Guru in my little world (secret is I'm not a guru!!) over the last couple of years. This site and the newsletters have been the springboard from which I have been able to achieve this.
In fact our company might have failed a long time ago if it weren't for you guys.
Hopefully this resource will not be lost as I doubt my company would still never pay for me to have a login etc. etc.
Keep up the good work guys and good luck in your respective futures.
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Thanks Guys for all your help over the last couple of years. I have gone from total SQL newbie to secret Guru in my little world (secret is I'm not a guru!!) over the last couple of years. This site and the newsletters have been the springboard from which I have been able to achieve this.
In fact our company might have failed a long time ago if it weren't for you guys.
Hopefully this resource will not be lost as I doubt my company would still never pay for me to have a login etc. etc.
Keep up the good work guys and good luck in your respective futures.
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Congratulations guys. This site has been instrumental in my professional growth both through the technical resource it has been as well as the opportunity to publish my own work. That opportunity gave me a great deal of self-confidence and I've really made forward strides from it. I look forward to meeting up with you guys tonight at the PASS party.
To Red-Gate... I've been really impressed with your product line. I hope that this site will still stay very similar with the same, unbiased, open approach toward advancing the technology around SQL Server products.
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First of all let me congratulate the SQL Server Central crew - I've worked with them for a long time and know a lot of sweat and hard work went into building this site over the years. I have especially appreciated sqlservercentral's independence. A specific example has been their refusal to allow vendors to pay them to displace other vendors, censor ad content etc. This was an ethical stand that cost them a bunch of money (more on this later) *
But the other reality here is that this acquisition an obvious move to outright buy and retain 100% control of a formerly independent media outlet. Now a sql server vendor will have complete control the content of what you see and read! Is this a good thing?
I also think red-gate isn't being open or honest about their intent which you can guarantee has been carefully calibrated to achieve maximum leverage of this newly acquired resource. They haven't disclosed that they have already cancelled all advertising contracts for 2007 - so now you can't be informed of new products that will compete with red-gate. Nor have they disclosed their "new standards" - will the forums be censored now to for example? News releases etc.
The obfuscation at play here is that Red-Gate is "helping" the community by eliminating "annoying" ads - when in fact the real goal is to eliminate ads that annoy them like ApexSQL competitive upgrade banners - that will be extinct soon (if not now) and wholly control this media outlet. This would be like the Republican National Committee (RNC) purchasing CNN. Please don't be fooled!
from one post "From what I know of the folks at Red-Gate, I believe they bought the site because they love it the way it is." You must be kidding right?
Well, did what you know of Red-Gate include the fact that Red-Gate plans to make $2 million a month? Kind of hard to accomplish buying sites because they love "the way it is". To get an insight into the REAL goals of this company - here is an interesting article http://www.Cambridge-news.co.uk/business/news/2006/03/28/057e323d-38f4-4bac-86ed-4e74a91ebeaf.lpf
Here is a quote from it : "We have a two year plan to reach sales of $2 million a month, and it looks fairly likely to happen," says Simon, who insists he is still trying to appease his mum, who questioned his leaving Shell."
Here is an excerpt, from an email I got this morning from Red-Gate "informing" me about the sale and cancelling my contract for 2007 - "Between now and January 1st 2007 we reserve the right to refuse to run advertising that does not conform with the new advertising standards and practices that will be applicable to SQL Server Central." So now Red-Gate has "new advertising standards"! What was wrong with the old ones - too independent? And they get to immediately apply them at their own discretion.
* Red-Gate's history of anti-competitive practices. As a side note - Red-Gate has a long history of bought and paid for censorship of advertising. for example I can't run any banners that will compete with their SQL Compare tools on sql-server-performance since Red-Gate paid for this censorship. it is in my contract! This has been in effect for 2 years. They tried to do this at sqlservercentral and were refused - thankfully. This year they tried to get even more at sql-server-performance. Combined with this purchase I would have almost no outlet to tell people about alternatives to red-gate tools.
Are these practices healthy for the sql tools ecosystem - when one vendor tries to suppress information? or diminish competition. Is competition healthy? If so aren't more, not less, open venues for competitors to inform customers better? When will it end? - when there are no independent outlets left that can server banners that compete with Red-Gate?
I think frankly that this is a very bad day for the sql server community - we have lost a great INDEPENDENT resource. and in return gotten a "bought and paid for" media outlet that has a direct conflict of interest in serving the best interests of the community. nothing in business is free - you will pay for this with degraded and slanted content - that is the cost.
I actually have some even more disturbing news, details about this event that we are researching now and hope to get out to people soon. I hope to proactively inform the community before the next shoe drops and give people a chance to voice concern, opposition.
If this post is censored by Red-Gate I'll try to carry on the fight on Radio Free SQL http://www.apexsql.com/blog/index.htm Look for more news there!
Brian Lockwood
President
ApexSQL - SQL Developer Essentials -
I second this, I love reading Steve's editorials; it is one of the best parts of the site.
I add my congratulations to Andy, Brian, and Steve and thank them for being so considerate, to the community they have built, when selling the site.
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"This would be like the Republican National Committee (RNC) purchasing CNN." Or the DNC buying Fox.
Bias in media is something that we have been fighting in the US for a long time. I'll wait a while and see what gives. Trying to best the competition by stifling the competition does not work. Linux is still around despite Microsoft and MySQL grows every month.
If this site turns into a shill it will turn into a shell because all the loyal readers will just go elsewhere. Not to be a threat or anything but does everybody know where the un-subscribe feature is?
ATBCharles Kincaid
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the service was really excellenmt and I hope it will continue as the discussion and articles were really helpful and detailed.
I hope the offer from Red gates was good and everybody could get benefit from it, and I hope that all the great SQL gurus replying on this site will stay even the rules might changed.
Thansk
Dominique
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The best advertizing is interaction with people by helping them with their problems. You will still have the chance to help people in these forumns. Personally, I am much more likely to click on your home page link underneath your username than an annoying advertizement on the site; especially if you have shown your skill by helping me with a problem.
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I must say that SQLServerCentral.com has increased my SQL knowledge manifold and it has also provided me with the opportunity to write a couple of articles.
I wish best of luck to Andy, Brian, and Steve. All the best guys! You have earned it
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This is by far the best SQL groupie site I have experienced, EXCELLENT JOB!! I even discontinued my logins to the other sites.
Best of luck, gentlemen.
Paul
- Paul
http://paulpaivasql.blogspot.com/
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BTW I'm not affiliated with RedGate or ASPFAQ.COM (though I spend my fair share of time reading ASPFAQ articles).
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