The most noteworthy thing about the Sun purchase of MySQL isn’t the purchase itself, but that it took Sun as long as it has. Sun has been around since the dawn of time in IT terms, is heavily into the enterprise market, you would have thought that a major presence in the relational database market would be acquisition #1.
Still, they’ve got there in the end. MySQL, as the predominant open source database, ties nicely into Sun’s re-branding as an open source oriented enterprise company.
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I think their timing is perfect. They needed to let MySQL get as big as it could on its own. It is now the predominant open source database, as you mention. At the same time, MySQL was about to go public, so this was a huge opportunity to step in that could not be missed. Look what happened with VMWare when it followed a similar path.
By waiting, you avoid killing the innovation for as long as possible. Once you have most of that in place, a big company like Sun will radically accelerate MySQL’s adoption curve.
More on my blog:
http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/mysql-and-bea-oracle-and-sun-will-be-at-each-others-throats/
Best,
BW
@Bob – I think you’re right, Sun’s timing of the MySQL purchase is perfect. But, the point I was making is that it is strange that it has taken them until 2008 to get into the database market.