I’m pretty enthused re: Mongo’s performance ---- definitely been a star in my portfolio.
I have a concern that mirrors exactly what Saul stated a couple of times:
Apparently AWS developed a local competing program, using the free MongoDB program, and modified it themselves without paying Mongo. I was afraid other large tech companies could do the same. I didn’t understand all the ins-and-outs of what was going on so I reduced my position somewhat. Then I saw that the price held up just fine and that the market didn’t consider it any threat, so I bought back a lot of what I had sold. I give it four confidence stars rating out of six, because I really don’t understand what it does, what its competitive position is, and what its dangers are. It was in danger of slipping into too-hard-to-understand box, but it obviously hasn’t.
Is the AWS issue not a major concern ---- given AWS’s dominance? Or as an investor, should I not think about this competitive issue too much since MDB is winning customers and growing customers hand over fist (69% YoY growth and 12% QoQ…and net dollar based retention was over 120%). And the market is obviously speaking very loudly re: MDB’s recent stock performance.
AWS has not done to MDB what it did to Redis, and that is modify it for free and commercially resell it.
To make sure that never happens Mongo has changed its licensing agreement.
The reason the share price held up is because this is largely a non-issue.
There are a lot of data bases, but none like Mongo. Mongo will not have 100% of the market as no one but ISRG does (by large patent and design hurdles for competitors not to mention networking effect).
The same concern hit Twilio (bogus) and Shopify (bogus).
To add to what Tinker said, “open source” is not the same as “public domain.” It’s “free” because the “owner,” or “copyright holder” decides under what conditions others may use his property for free. This is what allows Mongo to keep control of the software. If Jeff Bezos, a fierce competitor, backs down, it’s because he does not think he can win that fight.
In my portfolio, MDB is the stock closest to its all time high, down 7.7%, and the only one that made an all time high in December 2018. The market has a lot of confidence in this stock and I believe the driver is Atlas, the SaaS component of the business.
Denny Schlesinger
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Is the AWS issue not a major concern ---- given AWS’s dominance? Or as an investor, should I not think about this competitive issue too much since MDB is winning customers and growing customers hand over fist (69% YoY growth and 12% QoQ…and net dollar based retention was over 120%). And the market is obviously speaking very loudly re: MDB’s recent stock performance.
Jay, I think you have it right. For a non-tech person like us, attempting to understand the technological implications for Mongo of what AWS was doing is impossible. However, what AWS was doing was well publicized. If it was an existential threat to Mongo, Mongo would have dropped 30% in a day. Instead, the market yawned, and Mongo isn’t far from its all-time highs. This meant to me that it was not a big issue and we can get back to watching the numbers, which, as you point out, are outstanding.
Hope this helps.
Saul