Brian's Blog

Sun acquires MySQL

Posted by Brian on 20 January 2008

In Jonathan Schwartz's recent blog post he talks about why Sun purchased MySQL and what it means for them and the internet industry at large. Sun paid $1,000,000,000 USD for MySQL which had $50,000,000 USD in revenue last year.

What does Sun get out of this? 

  • The ability to tightly integrate and optimize MySQL for their own hardware.
  • Positioning themselves more at the center of the LAMP-stack worldview of how the internet should be run.
  • A stronger argument for associating Sun with datacenter solutions for the internet. Sun has had a long and complex history with Oracle. This move makes strengthens Sun's position against Oracle, especially because Oracle owns InnoDB, one of the core plug-in engines of MySQL.
  • The chance to provide commercial support and services to organizations who otherwise may not choose MySQL.

All of the above are good for Sun and on the whole, good for the internet community.

What does this mean for SilverStripe?

  • Having Sun behind MySQL should give an increased level of confidence to our current and future clients that their SilverStripe-based web application has the database backing of a long-time industry leader in Sun.
  • We hope that Sun will take this opportunity to simplify and provide greater value for the various commercial support options.
  • We have been working on multi-database support for awhile and plan to make PostgreSQL support available later this year with more database support to follow. As optimistic as we are about Sun's purchase of MySQL being a Good Thing, there is now the possibility that Sun will have a detrimental effect on MySQL. It's far too early to tell how Sun will treat MySQL, but Jonathan Schwatz offers some encouraging words in saying: "We're not acquiring them to tell them what to do - we acquiring them to listen. To their leaders, their community, and their customers." In the end, SilverStripe offering multiple database options to our customers is the best way to prevent database vendor-specific issues that may arise.

In general, the acquisition is good news for SilverStripe and our clients. The Sun-based support offerings and tight integrations with Sun hardware are things we are optimistic about. In particular, we believe that this move will allow more New Zealand-based businesses and government entities to consider MySQL as a viable database platform.

What do you think?

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Comments

  • Yes, I saw that column. I personally don't know where they got the cash but I'm sure their board had to approve this purchase and that there's been heaps of analysis done within Sun about how to make the deal work financially for them.

    Posted by Brian Calhoun, 22/01/2008 5:06pm (4 months ago)

  • Here's a very negative view:
    http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/john-dvoraks-second-opinion-sun-mysql/story.aspx?guid=%7B88606B4A%2DA4AF%2D46FC%2D9C80%2D6B186A622456%7D&dist=hplatest

    But the man's got a point. Where did Sun get that kind of money (and now we have come full circle to wojtek's initial statement ;-) ). This amount of money is in the same ballpark as Sun's yearly revenue.

    Posted by lancer, 22/01/2008 8:33am (4 months ago)

  • Brian, In my experience Sun is deaf in one ear, so we all make sure we talk to the right side ;-)

    Well on the upside; It was difficult to use MySQL within banking environments, because there was not a big vendor backing it (credit ratings etc.).

    Now that it it owned by Sun, this problem disappears. So on the short term, this might actually have some big advantages for SilverStripe, if you have/can find a big vendor thru which you can sell, or if you have the luck to talk to the business units (and not the IT department) directly.

    Posted by Lancer, 21/01/2008 7:38pm (4 months ago)

  • Lancer, I agree with what you're saying. I do believe Sun is going to be practical about this and not attempt to go head-to-head with Oracle. I truly hope Sun will listen to the community, as Jonathan has said.

    Posted by Brian Calhoun, 21/01/2008 9:29am (4 months ago)

  • Hmmmm, I once held Sun in High regard. However, at the moment I'm not impressed by the quality Sun delivers.

    If Sun is taking over the reigns of MySQL tightly, I'm not expecting much good. They see Oracle as a competitor. At the moment MySQL and Oracle have their own unique strengths. MySQL is a brilliant database for its purpose; serving relatively simple queries with great performance. If Sun is going to take on Oracle, I fear that MySQL will become another piece of Bloatware.

    On the other hand, I they just let MySQL do its thing, something good will happen. Sun will want to prove that MySQL on T1000 and T2000 systems will provide great performance (T1000 and T2000 are geared towards web applications). If they do this by strengthening the strong points that MySQL already has, MySQL will really become an awesome database in its own right.

    The worst Sun could do to MySQL is to force the MySQL guys to reprogram the database in Java ;-)

    Posted by lancer, 21/01/2008 3:02am (4 months ago)

  • $1,000,000,000 USD GEEEEEEZ a lot of cash

    Posted by wojtek, 20/01/2008 1:01pm (4 months ago)

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