Price of the Setting Sun
Not long ago when there was a rumor that IBM might by Sun Microsystems (see All the Failure Money Can Buy) I gave the opinion that this was a bad thing that IBM should not pursue. IBM didn’t pursue it and life went on.
Now today we have the news that a deal has been reached for Oracle to buy Sun instead (Oracle To Buy Sun For Approximately $7.4 Billion – Hold On To Your Hats). So the question is, is this as bad for Oracle as it would have been for IBM? Short answer: Not as bad, though still not great. Most of my reasons for thinking Sun was a bad buy for IBM apply to anyone who would buy Sun. I just don’t believe Sun has much of a future.
Weirdly, Sun claims that Java is an incredibly important part of the purchase. If I had any stock in Oracle, I’d sell it on the strength of that pronouncement alone (but I’m poor. I don’t own stock in anything, thank God). There is another aspect of the purchase that has to be taken into consideration, however. It’s called Mysql.
Mysql is a (mostly) free database package that comes included with most Linux installs and runs a ridiculously large percentage of Internet websites and applications. Sun bought Mysql a little over a year ago for $1 billion (Sun to Acquire Mysql). That’s right: They paid a billion dollars for a (mostly) free product. Shortly thereafter they started looking for somebody to buy the whole company because they were losing ground fast. Can we say, “Oops?”
IBM sells a database system called DB2. I once briefly played with a developer’s download of DB2 and found it to have a bit of a learning curve but a lot of power. Anyway, DB2 is far from commanding the market and I didn’t think there was much IBM or Sun could do to make DB2 and Mysql relevant to each other. So I didn’t mention DB2 or Mysql when I discussed the possible IBM deal for Sun.
For Oracle, the story is different. Oracle is the world’s leading database company, selling a product called Oracle. I have worked with Oracle considerably more than with DB2 both professionally and in classes where Oracle is assumed to be the platform of choice. Many of us who have worked in the real world would dispute this choice. Oracle is definitely powerful but it also has drawbacks. My personal feeling is that Oracle, while very powerful, is bloated, hard to learn and use, far less secure than its hype and not really worth the astronomical price tag.
Mysql could be seen as a major competitor for Oracle. (Not in the traditional sense since a competitor usually sells products, which Mysql actually does, but it mostly just gives it away. This weird business model came about as a side effect of its roots as a n open source product that then tried to figure out a way to make enough money that the developers wouldn’t need day jobs to support their work on it).
So what does Oracle plan for Mysql? A typical thing for executives who buy up a competing software package is to offer it as a “lite” version of the main product and then let it slowly die as development is strangled for resources and sales efforts are pumped into something they actually think they can make money on. This might not work with Mysql. The name may be trademarked but the original code was open source. A fork that keeps it alive may be possible (I’m just guessing. I don’t know for sure).
At this stage, there is no telling what will happen. When Sun bought Mysql I worried that I might have to start using Postgres (another db that really is open source and free). But then nothing bad happened and I stuck with the package I knew and liked. It is time to revisit that decision, just in case the geniuses at Oracle have big plans for Mysql.
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