I have just returned from a two-week speaking trip to Japan and Belgium.
I spoke at three locations in Tokyo, and at FOSDEM in Brussels.  I have
updated my home page to list all the speeches, including one on
replication and a new marketing one:

	http://candle.pha.pa.us/main/writings/computer.html

I had about 20-150 people at each presentation.  A had very few
questions about PostgreSQL vs. MySQL --- seems this question has been
answered in our favor.  I did get lots of questions about PostgreSQL vs.
Oracle, which is the right question.  ;-)

FOSDEM was very successful.  I think we will do it again next year. 
Actually, I would like to expand our geographic coverage.  We have
O'Reilly for North America, and FOSDEM for Europe.  It would be good to
have something in Asia, Australia, and perhaps Russia and Canada. 
Ideally, we can provide 6-12 hours of content as part of an event that
has other presentations that would be of interest to PostgreSQL folks. 
FOSDEM and O'Reilly meet these criteria.  If you know of such an event,
please let me know or contact the event organizers and ask if they want
PostgreSQL as part of their event.

Let me share one question I got often during my trip, "Why should I use
PostgreSQL?"  In every case, my answer was that you should use
PostgreSQL because we have amassed a group of developers and committed
users that no other company can match.  The open source development
model allows us to improve PostgreSQL at an amazing rate.  If you look
at where we were seven year ago, and where we are now, it is impossible
to overestimate how advanced we will be seven years from now. So, I
said, don't choose PostgreSQL only for where it is now, but for where it
is going.

I am home for ten days, then head to China and Japan for another two
weeks.  Those visits are not to attend conferences, but to meet with
companies using PostgreSQL.  I am taking my ten-year-old son with me.

I will start catching up on my email now.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

Tue, 11 Feb 2003 16:32:40 -0500 (EST)
Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
Report on Japan, Belgium trip