The latest from the MySQL community

The big news to kick off this week was Oracle’s announced acquisition of Sun Microsystems. There is already a lot of discussion of the integration challenges, how Oracle is getting into hardware (or as Matt Asay describes it, having an ‘iPod moment’) and of course, the implications for open source software. What stands out to me is the fact that the world’s biggest proprietary database player — one of few software giants that still sells and supports primarily proprietary software — will own the world’s most popular open source database, MySQL. It is unclear how significantly MySQL figures into the deal, but given Sun spent $1b acquiring it and further invested in its enterprise readiness and use, …

My CAOS colleague Matt Aslett wrote recently about how we expect to see an uptick in open source merger and acquisition activity given the current economic conditions and bargains for the larger, mostly proprietary players. Matt also discusses the difficulty of further VC funding, though we have seen some significant investment announcements, such as Open-Xchange, Infobright and others. Still, Matt is probably right that funding will be harder to come by for any company, open source or not.

I also continue to see a number of startup and younger open source vendors — would-be fundees — that are opting to hold off on venture funding and stick to building up business, customers and …

Is 2008 going to be the Year of the Acquisition? Activity in 2007 was on the rise but now things seem to be at full speed.

• I remember when Alta Vista and Excite! were the hot search engines, my how the world has changed.  It looks like it’s narrowing down to a two horse race with Microsoft putting the moves on Yahoo! for about $44.6 billion (Notes from SearchEngineLand). I guess it’s really on now, Google versus Microsoft in a search engine death match.
• Yahoo! acquired Zimbra last year. I wonder …

Play or download the podcast here: http://technocation.org/content/oursql-episode-24%3A-sun-shining OurSQL Episode 24: “The Sun is Shining” Sun Microsystems recently announced the purchase of MySQL. In this interview the day of the announcement, OurSQL asks Brian Aker about what this means for customers, community, Sun and MySQL. Tell us what you think of Sun buying MySQL by calling the [...]

Its already a day old, but the news is as hot as ever. Sun will acquire MySQL before the end of the year.

Congratulation to MySQL and Sun!

And well done to all who were involved in making this deal, in particular, those I know personally: Marten, Monty, David, Zack and Kaj!

As I mentioned to Kaj, I am sure that MySQL has a very bright future under the wings of Sun. A deal for $1 billion made in 5 weeks can only mean both sides are extremely motivated to make it work.

I have just 3 concerns:

• I hope that the MySQL web-site will not disappear into the Sun web-site like the proverbial needle in a haystack! Sun's download page alone is as big as the MySQL web-site ;) I would like to see a mysql.sun.com, where we can find our way around easily.
  
  
• And the second is similar to the first but relates to the people. There is a massive difference …

At 2 pm EST (-5 GMT), OurSQL will be interviewing Brian Aker, MySQL’s Director of Architecture, about today’s announcement that Sun Microsystems bought MySQL. If you have a burning question (about the purchase), please comment here. If you’d like to be identified, please leave your name and where you’re from in your comment [...]

SUN Microsystems just bought MySQL, see the announcement at http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2008-01/sunflash.20080116.1.xml Now, MySQL isn’t going away any time soon; there are just way too many people that use it. And while Postgres is not actually owned by SUN, they do employ some great folks to develop on it, and those folks are the the “known” Postgres [...]