Sun to buy MySQL for a $1B
Thursday, January 17th, 2008BetaNews | Sun to spend $1B to acquire MySQL, will compete with Oracle, Microsoft
One of the principal products in the LAMP open source arsenal will become a Sun Microsystems product, possibly by the end of this quarter.When discussing enterprise database installations worldwide, as of today, it will be impossible not to consider Sun Microsystems along with Microsoft and Oracle. This morning, Sun announced it has reached an agreement with MySQL — which by some accounts may have become the producer of the most widely installed database, under everyone’s noses — in a deal expected to be closed as soon as this March.
This can be either very good or very bad. Anytime a major firm like Sun, is willing to invest in an OSS project its great for the project, but now they will be able to run it as well. That could be disastrous. From reading the article, Sun has big plans to use MySQL to shake up their product line. There also seems to be a disconnect between MySQL and Sun over what changes will take place for MySQL after the acquisition. It is never good when the acquired seems to be in the dark about the nature there organization after the acquisition is done. That smells like a lot of people leaving to me. I’ve been wrong before, and I hope I am again about this.
