Sun Microsystems Acquires MySQL

Website and web applications developers are familiar with MySQL — one of the predominant database platforms used throughout the Internet, including by powerhouses such as Google, Yahoo!, Nokia, and YouTube. More than 100 million copies have reportedly been downloaded and distributed during its history. On January 17th, Sun Microsystems announced that it would buy MySQL AB, the Swedish developer of MySQL for US$1 billion. On February 26th, Sun announced that it had completed the acquisition.

This stunning development shines the spotlight on the gains being increasingly made by so-called FOSS (free and open source software) solutions which “grant the user the right to study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code“. MySQL is a key part of the LAMP stack consisting of Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl/Python, and was originally developed in Sweden by David Axmark, Allan Larsson and Michael “Monty” Widenius who had been working together since the 1980s.

This acquisition enables Sun to provide the most complete open source solution for building and deploying efficient, effective, and secure Web-based applications and services. Over the last decade, the company has morphed from providing proprietary software to open source. It already provides Java, OpenSolaris, and OpenOffice under open source licensing. Both companies now give away most of their software, and instead generate revenues by offering services for the free software and providing deluxe versions of the software to large corporations.

The acquisition of the world’s second largest independent software company, which holds more than 49% of the open source database market, will cause some consternation on the part of some in the open source camp, but others expect it to further validate the open source business model.

More information is available here and here and here.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 7th, 2008 at 11:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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