This is very relevant in the context of the EU probe of the
Oracle-Sun takeover. MySQL’s share of the database market, which
is usually measured by revenue, is of course peanuts and
estimated range from half a percent to something slightly more.
Peanuts.
This is not surprising, considering an estimated 999 out of every
1000 MySQL users does not pay Sun/MySQL anything (although some
might be Open Query clients and while MySQL has been targeting
higher-end clients and corresponding higher revenue, its pricing
is still far lower than the premium-cost of Oracle, DB2 and the
like.
All this proves very clearly something which I’ve been saying for
years (do scan back in my blog , the definition of market
share is borked when it comes to Open Source and low-end
disruptors (MySQL has been both although it might no
longer be a low-end disruptor, having overshot the needs of a
significant chunk of its users). The market …
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