Sun buys MySQL AB 16 January, 2008 By Paul Weinberg

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That might seem like a lot of money for a 400 person company that has offices in Silicon Valley and Scandinavia, but its software is also the underlying database technology for a host of companies such as Facebook, Google, Nokia, Baidu and China Mobile.

"MySQL is considered by many in open source to be a key player in the Web 2.0 world," suggested Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

"Given Sun's position in enterprise data centers, I think the aim here is for Sun to expose MySQL more on the enterprise side and mainstream the application."

On the downside, Sun has upset some open source people for the time taken to open Sun's proprietary Solaris and Java software, King indicated.

"How the open source community is going to react to this is going to be very interesting. I know that Sun is regarded by some in the community as a vital positive influence in open source, but for many others, it 'talks more than it walks.'"

Meanwhile, Noel Yuhanna, principal analyst at Forrester Research, is enthusiastic about the Sun purchase of MySQL.

"MySQL has been the undisputed leader of open source databases and they have a very strong penetration in the SMB and small database apps."

Yuhanna suggested that MySQL was struggling to take its growth to the next stage, which is to challenge the big three database vendors -- Oracle, IBM and Microsoft -- that collectively own 86 per cent of the database market.

"And so you really need a big vendor, a 100 pound gorilla to really penetrate this market and we believe that Sun has got a strong commitment in open source."

MySQL lacks the functionality of the database applications sold by the big three vendors, but not every customer "really needs 50,000 new features," Yuhanna explained.

The industry analyst told eChannelline that a "doubling" in the number of databases installed is inevitable as enterprise customers investigate less expensive alternatives for new web applications, composite applications and web services applications.

With a free open source database product where the vendor generates revenue on the support and services, MySQL coupled with Sun's market power could be a formidable competitor for the big three database vendors, Yuhanna predicted.

"Are you going to spend millions of dollars on these [database] investments or are you going to start looking at new opportunities at lower costs."

Microsoft, IBM and Oracle may be forced to lower their prices for their database applications, Yuhanna noted.

He pointed to the range among database applications from $40,000 per CPU for Oracle's product compared to $25,000 per CPU for Microsoft's SQL server.

"There is no choice. You always have to pay a premium for these databases, and even if you are using a small requirement for a database," the Forrester industry analyst added.

Meanwhile, Josh Farina, an analyst at Technology Business Research, noted that Microsoft has successfully drawn away some business from the open-source databases at the departmental or small business computing level.

"Microsofts out-of-the-box integration with other pieces of the Microsoft stack is a strong differentiator. The challenge for Sun will be to compete against Microsoft and restore the lustre to the MySQL brand."

The My SQL acquisition also allows Sun to expand its ability to provision web applications via its utility business model, Farina said.

"The emerging utility computing market lacks a dominant provider, and various visions of what constitutes a viable platform are being developed by Google, Yahoo, Amazon and even Microsoft."

The acquisition expands Suns capabilities "to provision the software and hardware required to migrate applications onto the web," Farina added.