A tale of two deals

January 16th, 2008 javier

What an incredible start to an otherwise unremarkable, mid-January day!

First, the huge news about MySQL being acquired by Sun Microsystems… then the news about BEA being acquired by Oracle. The first deal is significant given the ‘imminent’ IPO that was expected by MySQL later this year. The second is significant if only because of the amount of bickering between BEA’s management team, Oracle, and their respective shareholders.

Perhaps the most revealing thing about both of these huge transactions is how they are presented on their websites! MySQL has the Sun deal front and center (as one would expect). BEA’s website has the same SOA-logic-gene-liquid thing they’ve been talking about for months, along with the now extremely overused (and BLUE!) ink floating on air image that’s part of their “Think Liquid” campaign. Where’s the blurb about the $8 BILLION acquisition of its soul by Oracle? Well, it’s in small print… down on the left hand corner of the site. Look closely! You’d think that for that amount of money, Oracle would have demanded a big Oracle Logo smack in the middle of the main page.

Makes you wonder how excited those guys are about joining the Oracle machine…

On a more positive note, Sun’s comments about MySQL continue to validate the importance of open source, as well as the unique role that MySQL plays in large scale web infrastructure.

From Jonathan’s Blog:

Both sets of customers confirmed what we’ve known for years - that 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.

This serves as a great example of why we here at Hyperic are focused on helping solve the ops challenges of large web applications, most of which use MySQL. Hearing Sun talk about MySQL in these terms rather than simply saying it’s the cheap/free database that you can use instead of Oracle is refreshing, and a great validation of a market that will continue to demand open, innovative solutions that arent simply rehashes of old technology delivered under a lower cost business model.

Entry Filed under: IT Industry, Javiers Blog