Sun Microsystems Purchases MySQL

Wednesday, Jan. 16 2008 | Author: Dave

MySQL Logo In what I see as a very strange change, Sun Microsystems now owns the open source database system MySQL. They were sold to Sun for one billion dollars, which isn’t the IPO that many people were expecting from the company.

Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz wrote about the purchase on his blog.

MySQL is by far the most popular platform on which modern developers are creating network services. From Facebook, Google and Sina.com to banks and telecommunications companies, architects looking for performance, productivity and innovation have turned to MySQL. In high schools and college campuses, at startups, at high performance computing labs and in the Global 2000. The adoption of MySQL across the globe is nothing short of breathtaking. They are the root stock from which an enormous portion of the web economy springs.

Pretty much every major PHP application I have used needs MySQL databases to function, so this is probably a smart move for Sun, but I have to wonder what this will mean for the software going forward.

A big thanks to TechCrunch for the heads up.

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One Response for "Sun Microsystems Purchases MySQL"

David Coldrick

January 18th, 2008 at 5:06 am
1

Don’t see how anyone could interpret it as strange: to my mind (I’m a Sun employee who had *no* idea this was happening), it’s such a natural fit, particularly on the cultural side. MySQL are successful at exactly what we do (and want to do more of), at least on the software side of the house.

People – both internal and external to Sun – rabbit on about how Sun and Apple should get together. Regardless of how much I love Apple’s products – that is to say, a lot! – the cultural fit (closed and secret on Apple’s side, wide open on the Sun side) would be a disaster. Besides, one of Steve or Jonathan would leave, and that would be even more of a disaster.

This particular marriage was made in heaven, and the customers of both organisations will benefit.

Best regards,
David