Helping Dolphins Fly
We announced big news today - our preliminary results for our fiscal second quarter, and as importantly, that we're acquiring MySQL AB.
If you're interested in the financial details for the quarter, tune in to our conference call (see details on sun.com) today - we'll obviously have more to say as we release our formal results on January 24th.
But the biggest news of the day is... we're putting a billion dollars behind the M in LAMP. If you're an industry insider, you'll know what that means - we're acquiring MySQL AB, the company behind MySQL, the world's most popular open source database.
You'll recall I wrote about a customer event a few weeks ago, at which some of the world's most important web companies talked to us about their technology challenges. Simultaneously, we gathered together some of the largest IT shops and their CIO's, and spent the same two days (in adjoining rooms) listening to their views and directions.
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. In high schools and college campuses, at startups, at high performance computing labs and in the Global 2000. The adoption of MySQL across the globe is nothing short of breathtaking. They are the root stock from which an enormous portion of the web economy springs.
But as I pointed out, we heard some paradoxical things, too. CTO's at startups and web companies disallow the usage of products that aren't free and open source. They need and want access to source code to enable optimization and rapid problem resolution (although they're happy to pay for support if they see value). Alternatively, more traditional CIO's disallow the usage of products that aren't backed by commercial support relationships - they're more comfortable relying on vendors like Sun to manage global, mission critical infrastructure.
This puts products like MySQL in an interesting position. They're a part of every web company's infrastructure, to be sure. And though many of the more traditional companies use MySQL (from auto companies to financial institutions to banks and retailers), many have been waiting for a Fortune 500 vendor willing to step up, to provide mission critical global support.
So what are we announcing today? That in addition to acquiring MySQL, Sun will be unveiling new global support offerings into the MySQL marketplace. We'll be investing in both the community, and the marketplace - to accelerate the industry's phase change away from proprietary technology to the new world of open web platforms.
The good news is Sun is already committed to the business model at the heart of MySQL's success - first investing to grow communities of users and developers, and only then creating commercial services that attract (rather than lock in) paying customers. Over the past few years, we've distributed hundreds of millions of licenses and invested to build some of the free software world's largest communities. From Java to ZFS, Lustre to
Glassfish, NetBeans to OpenOffice.org and OpenSolaris, we've been patient investors and contributors, both. Free and open software has become a way of life at Sun. MySQL's has similarly driven extraordinary adoption of their community platform, with more than 100 million downloads over the past 10 years. Their users, as with Sun's, run MySQL across every major operating system - Linux, Windows, Solaris and the Mac; and every major system platform, from IBM, Intel, AMD, Dell, Sun and HP.
Not coincidentally, those companies are exactly the companies with whom Sun has signed OEM relationships - so the integration of MySQL into Sun's ecosystem and channels will be exceptionally straightforward.
So how do we plan to go after this new opportunity? In a few fundamental ways.
We've historically worked at arm's length to optimize MySQL on Sun's platforms. Just as we did for Oracle in their early days, our performance engineering teams will sit (virtually) with their counterparts in MySQL and in the community, leveraging technologies such as ZFS and DTrace (which we didn't even have in the Oracle era) to ensure Sakila flies - along with the rest of the LAMP stack (from memcached and php, to the broader ISV community around MySQL). MySQL is already the performance leader on a variety of benchmarks - we'll make performance leadership the default for every application we can find (and on every vendor's hardware platforms, not just Sun's - and on Linux, Solaris, Windows, all). For the technically oriented, Falcon will absolutely sing on Niagara... talk about a match made in heaven.
Second, I've asked our team to negotiate an arms' length commercial transaction, prior to closing, that allows us to provide Global Enterprise Support for MySQL - so that traditional enterprises looking for the same mission critical support they've come to expect with proprietary databases can have that peace of mind with MySQL, as well. This gives traditional enterprises a world of new choices and competition. As I said, if there's one item customers have been asking from us for years it's more innovation in the database marketplace - we're now in a position to respond.
Third, we'll be announcing some exceptionally attractive platform offerings, leveraging the success Lustre and ZFS, along with new systems platforms (like the new 48TB Thumpers and 64 thread Niagara2 machines) to deliver eye popping price performance. Ultimately, that's what customers want - real value, supported globally, with quality and performance. Most importantly, MySQL's partners are going to be the centerpiece of our solutions and offers - just as we've done with Solaris and Java, we're going to work very hard to make our ISV's wildly successful as we broaden the market. It takes decades to build a broad partner portfolio, and they are an enormous part of the value customers see in Sun, and we certainly see in MySQL.
And finally, this acquisition will kickstart a new set of investments Sun will be making into the academic community. Why universities? As we continue to invest in open source software development across the world, it's apparent that nearly all roads lead to academic environments - and it's high time we (as an industry) started watering the trees at their roots. It's one thing to say you're committed to education, it's another to put your money where your mouth is. Within the next 60 days, Greg will be announcing a new set of global research fellowships designed to advance the state of engineering on the internet. (Stay tuned on this blog, and on Greg's, for updates.)
So why is this important for the internet? Until now, no platform vendor has assembled all the core elements of a completely open source operating system for the internet. No company has been able to deliver a comprehensive alternative to the leading proprietary OS. With this acquisition, we will have done just that - positioned Sun at the center of the web, as the definitive provider of high performance platforms for the web economy. For startups and web 2.0 companies, to government agencies and traditional enterprises. This creates enormous potential for Sun, for the global free software community, and for our partners and customers across the globe. There's opportunity everywhere.
To the folks at MySQL, from employees to customers and partners - welcome, and we're thrilled to join you. This acquisition spells the beginning of a new era on the internet.
Starting with the letter M.
Posted on 05:05AM Jan 16, 2008 | Comments[79]
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congratulations, and that is indeed a wonderful piece of news. Hope this brings more good things for Sun.
Posted by Parthasarathi on January 16, 2008 at 05:19 AM PST #
this is great! now dolphin has joined the elephant_postgreSql
Posted by evijs on January 16, 2008 at 05:21 AM PST #
Cool! Great new!!
Posted by ivan.shi on January 16, 2008 at 05:22 AM PST #
Oh! thats a great news for sun and for all web 2.0 companies too.
Posted by Satya on January 16, 2008 at 05:23 AM PST #
Excited to see that:) Sun has placed itself into a more prominent place in the open source world.
Posted by Miles Xu on January 16, 2008 at 05:23 AM PST #
Jonathan - as you say, an exciting new step for Sun. You also note that some 'traditional' large enterprises (and I'm thinking of some investment banks I've dealt with, for instance) are very wary of the proliferation of open source databases on their intranets. You're right: global, enterprise-grade support will go some way to reassuring those customers. Another key element, I think, is improved system management, so they can have the same level of comfort that what's running out there 'is what it claims to be'...
I hope we can do something to help there, too.
Posted by Robin Wilton on January 16, 2008 at 05:32 AM PST #
Way to go Sun ! What a way to start the day.
Posted by Leroy on January 16, 2008 at 05:34 AM PST #
Good one...
Posted by a on January 16, 2008 at 05:38 AM PST #
I've been using MySQL for years (before I worked at Sun), and even built a decent LMS using it. It never failed, and its performance was amazing. This is great news to wake up to -- and after reading the post, it seems like a natural fit for everything we're doing in the open source community!
Posted by Brandon on January 16, 2008 at 05:40 AM PST #
The coolest move in a long time. Congratulations to both Sun and MySQL.
Posted by Thommy M. Malmström on January 16, 2008 at 05:45 AM PST #
Congrats, out of the box thinking! How does it affect Sun's relationship with Oracle?
Posted by R on January 17, 2008 at 12:58 AM PST #
Hats off to SUN and MYSQL
Posted by ashwin on January 17, 2008 at 01:40 AM PST #
It is very cool to be a BIG FORTUNE XXX actor like sun in the succesfull open Source community.
I really see this as a very smart action for the future....
But still I will be saying something not so good:
- "It is fine to spent money on successfull Open Source projets . But I would be also good to manage well sun's big Open source Project : java.
I am a very small french startup and java-swing-web-service is very important for me just like MySql.
But I am sorry to say that java platform is not yet in janaury 2008 ready for Web Service.
Please do manage sun's Open source project good: Just think like a MySql manager: Think about users: simplicity, usabillity.
Weneed to have java thiner, quicker to install, more easy to program, more easy to integreat with other standard web service.
It is not that complicated: just mimic the Flash Player.
If you do it right (and you do not need the 10 best programers of the world : no, you just need to make more-java-user-and-simple-developer-friendly prioryties ) then I bet you Mr Shwart'z that next YouTube service will be made in java platform."
Ok, I said it. No harm, just feel I had to say it.
Thierry Milard Paris, France
Posted by Thierry on January 17, 2008 at 02:13 AM PST #
Great to see the power of Sun behind the LAMP stack!
Congrats!
Posted by Henry Paradiz on January 17, 2008 at 02:37 AM PST #
So what's the future of PostgreSQL? Or will that be dumped or sidelined by Sun?
Posted by Tarmo Toikkanen on January 17, 2008 at 02:42 AM PST #
This is real great news. Lack of a database offering was sorely being felt for almost a decade at Sun. As an ex-Sun employee (who still hopes to become a millionaire on Sun stocks :-) and as an entrepreneur running his business on OpenSolaris, Apache, MySQL and PhP, this is indeed exhilarating news.
Posted by sherif on January 17, 2008 at 03:00 AM PST #
Congratulations! You've just taken control over the entire web-stack. Now you have a complete solution like Oracle, IBM and Microsoft - with one slight difference.. It's yours and it's open :) Best of luck in 2008.
Posted by Niklas Andersson, TechWorld Open Source on January 17, 2008 at 03:03 AM PST #
Только бы не похоронили MySQL в бюрократии...
Posted by Martwa on January 17, 2008 at 03:17 AM PST #
Congratulation to both MySQL AB and Sun. Just another good move of Sun to the open source world. hope it will make sun giving to Community more and more
Posted by sumodirjo on January 17, 2008 at 03:22 AM PST #
This is great !!!
Some news like that makes opensource more and more reliable not just for large comapnies but for every small community of youngsters trying to make a living and not just survive in countries with so much poverty, like mine.
Posted by Silvio Bogsan on January 17, 2008 at 03:31 AM PST #
More support from Sun to the Open Source Community. Hope this gets translated into more Revenues and better Margins for Sun.
Posted by Srinivasan on January 17, 2008 at 04:06 AM PST #
What will happen with PostgreSQL in Solaris now?
Posted by UX-admin on January 17, 2008 at 04:06 AM PST #
La noticia del año, que contento me deja, quien más que Sun para hacerlo realidad.
Viva Sun y el Open Source.
Posted by Andrés Sarmiento on January 17, 2008 at 04:08 AM PST #
Great news Jonathan. This will help solidify Sun's role in the OSS "market". We're curious, however, about how this acquisition will impact Sun's support of Postgres? The Open in Open Source means many things, especially choice. But there are limits to how many technology choices customers can track. What will Sun's pitch to customers looking for open source relational databases be?
Posted by max stevens-guille on January 17, 2008 at 05:09 AM PST #
Posted by double density design on January 17, 2008 at 05:37 AM PST #
Jonathan, you ROCK! This spells the beginning of SAMP, and shows that Sun is With It. Congratulations on a great quarter, and here's to many more.
Mark
Posted by Mark-a-Sun on January 17, 2008 at 06:14 AM PST #
This is a second Java+DB merge on the news today, and it leaves me wondering, is every player in industry meaning to go for a full set of enterprise solution? Well, ye, i know that a full support is a must have in a Fortune 500 company, but do we really need to have one support provider behind everything?
So what's next?, Sun buying JBoss?
Posted by Nerijus on January 17, 2008 at 06:28 AM PST #
Posted by SpringSource Team Blog on January 17, 2008 at 06:34 AM PST #
I wonder if Sun is going to buy Apache Software Foundation some day. If Sun could offer all-in-one solution with its support, it may become a leader in high-performance server technologies on the market.
Posted by McBit on January 17, 2008 at 08:03 AM PST #
Amazing news, I hope that Java also will benifit from this acquisition.
Posted by Daniel on January 17, 2008 at 10:17 AM PST #
Jonathan and Sun team:
Congratulations for pulling this together and making
Sun more relevant in the web facing opportunities.
Although, this sounds like a negative NPV venture
it is worth taking the risk instead of siting on the
cash $800M + stocks. Please do not serve another bowl
of wet sand to your consumers - a la carte NetDynamics
or Cobalt. And please do not put JAVA in the name!
MySQL is simplified and self-branded.
BeanCounter
Posted by BeanCounter on January 17, 2008 at 10:55 AM PST #
Posted by OpenLogic Blogs on January 17, 2008 at 11:08 AM PST #
Fine idea to invest in the Universities - but is that really where the innovations come from? It's much of that research seems trivial relative to the so called "real world" database work. There are people out here doing our own research and development without degrees and publications - instead of peer review we have "is it running? Does it do what we need"? By all means, fund the universities, for the sake of the next Dr Bob Epstein etc. But remember how much was accomplished through the dropouts who were too interested in doing to always write the papers. You need both.
"And finally, this acquisition will kickstart a new set of investments Sun will be making into the academic community. Why universities? As we continue to invest in open source software development across the world, it's apparent that nearly all roads lead to academic environments - "
Posted by R Reid on January 17, 2008 at 11:27 AM PST #
Great news, excellent move, I love to see Sun doing bold and smart moves, the tech community should be very happy for the implications of Sun moving with such a determination into Open Source.
Posted by Sergio Mabres on January 17, 2008 at 01:24 PM PST #
But boy, what a move by Sun. What's next from both companies? Circle April 14 on your calendar. That's when MySQL's annual conference and expo kicks off in Santa Clara. Jonathan Schwartz and team should have a lot to say to customers and partners at that event.
Posted by Bill W. on January 17, 2008 at 02:05 PM PST #
Great!
Does this mean we see a bundle of Java/Glassfish with MySQL and perhaps even Sun promoting JLAMP? Or even creating an easy to manage and install SJAMP (Solaris-Java-Apache-MySQL-PHP)?
http://www.jroller.com/dk/entry/bundling_java_glassfish_with_mysql
If you do this the right way ISPs and vitual shared hosting could move to JLAMP and even SJAMP :)
Posted by Dieter Krachtus on January 17, 2008 at 02:30 PM PST #
"We're putting a billion dollars behind the M in LAMP."
OMG!
Finally. Thanks.
Snippet for the day:
import community.brains.*;
.....
com.redhat.acquisitions.getBiggest().clone();
com.sun.initRevival();
//TODO: more such <-- NOTE
.....
However, note how Microsoft CEO Ballmer clearly indicated that he would be purchasing startups over the year. So, great to see SUN land the biggest fish on the web.
In true opensource fashion, a little idea to add to the collective enthusiastic thought pool - micropayments-enabled support portal. I find that everyone in the corporate world is busy. Very busy. In fact, so busy that they have no time to actually see the real worth of free code.
Busy people want humans to talk to and they want facts fast and only what is needed. Google is getting better and better at this, but people don't know how to use the keyboard. So, support. And support makes you money in opensource.
Now, for example, we can see that we have about 100+ Contact Management and Personal Finance solutions to choose from and many of them are written in Java.
But who is to tell me which is best for me? Normally, I get a consultant and he does an audit and stuff. But that can't be done globally.
I'm a tiny pseudo-consultant and I find that I do not get paid for my suggestions which, though might seem trivial here, are actually revenue sources for people earning their livelhood from IT management portals, for example. The very existence of the tech media industry is proof of the need for suggestion/software rating services. And I have spent hours reading stuff on the web. And its very valuable knowledge. But, no one pays me unless it is accepted practice. Information is financially very valuable when provided at the right place and at the right time.
So will SUN busy itself answering calls that it cannot monetize meaningfully? No. SUN is interested in the upper section of the market.
So what must be done? Bundle your apps with the OS? Your OS goes nowhere in SOHO/SMB. At least not globally.
You need footsoldiers. But when will they work for you ? When you monetize *their* knowledge for them. Then they will work for you.
That means, you need to make a portal available to the small fellow, for him to make a few *quick* bucks off, by chatting for 15-30 minutes (keyboard or mic, your take).
A remote admin facility, a VNC-enabled support system for a list of Java and Solaris projects.
Will this cannibalize on your support revenue? You know better.
When small guys all over the place group around such a chat-support portal dedicated to SUN, Java, and now MySQL products, you will have more people playing with Java programs. All those free software authors will come back to earn their rightful fees.
But, NOTE that one thing is crucial for this - easy micro-payments across geographies. You really should concentrate some energies on this, if you want your brand to go around the SOHO/SMB market.
That is my opinion. YMMV.
Posted by nowyouaretalking on January 17, 2008 at 02:41 PM PST #
Posted by Once More unto the Breach on January 17, 2008 at 03:25 PM PST #
@Thierry Milard, maybe take a look at Groovy for your MySQL access. The code is so simple, you could easily migrate from your PHP code base. See http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GROOVY/Tutorial+6+-+Groovy+SQL for a tutorial. (Just replace the driver with "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver" and put mysql-connector-java-5.1.5-bin.jar in your classpath).
I agree that simplicity and usability are the key to Sun's success going forwards. MySQL is to RDBMS what Linux was to Unix - something we like to use that's cheap and works well. Can Solaris become equally user-friendly and popular?
Jon - any news about Rock? The last news at www.theregister.co.uk from Ashley Vance was that it's delayed and underperforming? I'm really hoping he's wrong. Regarding MySQL, congratulations on a wonderful relationship with your new hot Swede! Awesome!
Posted by Kevin Hutchinson on January 17, 2008 at 04:10 PM PST #
Congrats Jonathan, you are a kind of a genious, and very well informed. I wish well to everyone at Sun MySQL labs.
Posted by Diego on January 17, 2008 at 04:16 PM PST #
This is excellent. As to PostgreSQL, my guess is it will be supported as long as people are willing to pay for it. Take a page from IBM's book. It turned their fortunes around and they are a completely different beast today.
One of the biggest problems I have with Linux are the difficulties getting support for the entire stack. This should help. But in defense of Linux, at least most bonafide faults get corrected rather quickly, thanks to all the "eyeballs."
One really important thing I'd like to see WRT this announcement - I'd love for Sun applications and subsystems to use MySQL for its internal record keeping. There have been (rather lame) attempts to use ldap, but that's not really a great match for structured, non-hierarchic data. Using MySQL as the database would allow for a very well-understood "API" for many features. Logging, for example, would be very nice to have in a relational database, versus BAFs (big ass files) that tend to fill up filesystems. Plus, "log rotation" could be much smarter, throwing away "informational" stuff, but archiving major events/changes. Just a thought...
Posted by Charles Soto on January 17, 2008 at 05:29 PM PST #
Great to see this!
Posted by Diet Guru on January 17, 2008 at 05:42 PM PST #
this is great news.
hopefully a Sun ownership/management will help MySQL expand to other application platforms. here's one: Moodle, the open-source learning management system. education is undergoing a profound change and most experts reckon that e-learning/distance learning will become more necessary in the future (sooner than later...way sooner) and the demand for this type of application will continue. problem is MySQL does not scale very well in this situation. we all know there is an inherent limitation in tables when implementing with open source apps.
so...please, Sun systems....please make MySQL SCALABLE and adaptable to as many open-source code as possible. we want it...we need it.
Posted by ramon lazo on January 17, 2008 at 06:07 PM PST #
haha nerijus, you're late! jboss has already been bought by redhat. With the MySQL acquisition, Sun now has a complete, open source, enterprise-grade stack. The stack is low cost and able to compete with offerings from Oracle, IBM and Microsoft. It's a new era of co-opetition.
Posted by john lim on January 17, 2008 at 06:20 PM PST #
Jonatham, congratulations on a very smart move and 4 consecutive profitable quarters. However, a word of caution. Well, a few actually - Sun has had a bad history on acquisitions. It will take a lot of commitment on your end to ensure that the MySQL acquisition doesn't go the way of LightHouse, NetDynamics, Kiva, Netscape, etc. That would be a tremendous loss, not just for Sun, but for the entire open source community. Here's hoping for the best.
Posted by Rajesh on January 17, 2008 at 07:10 PM PST #
thats well.. we want to mysql 6.. thank you jonothan
Posted by oyunlar on January 17, 2008 at 07:13 PM PST #
Well Done! In order to celebrate this occasion, I put together a slam dunk solution to show off how easy it can be set up MySQL (and phpMyAdmin) in Solaris Zones. Check it out at the http://TheZoneManager.com.
Posted by Brad Diggs (aka The Zone Manager) on January 17, 2008 at 08:45 PM PST #
I think that a more appropriate title of this blog post is:
"Helping the Sun Shine"
Smart move!
Posted by Balderdash on January 17, 2008 at 09:18 PM PST #
I don't get it. What do you want to do with MySQL?
You could take PostgreSQL to a level where it could been seen as a competitor to Oracle.
But MySQL isn't going to be used for anything serious (critical) for a long time. I am out there, I would know if it were. Just haven't seen it anywhere. Webshops perhaps, but that's it.
Posted by Tobias on January 18, 2008 at 03:19 AM PST #
Congratulations, but i have a question, what happen with the license of Mysql?, you 'll release a new license?, Mysql will be free?. thanks.
Posted by Jose Edgardo Lopez on January 18, 2008 at 07:24 AM PST #
Hi,
I do not know what to make of this acquisition yet. To me it appears that you finally realize that the database is the heart of the internet and you needed to have something to compete with against the likes of Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM. But whats the big deal?
I highly doubt that this offering will put a dent in Oracles quest to rule the IT world. They have a more mature offering and have the applications layer. They are able to offer database, middleware and application which have been engineered from the ground which will make it more secure than your separate database and middleware offering.
Sun now can offer a bare bones version of database and middleware. If we learned anything at all from the Microsoft monopoly it is the applications layer that drives people to consolidate their technology purchases and Oracle and IBM are about 10 years ahead of Sun.
Oracle has their middleware and applications written in Java. While it may not be "open source" it is an open architecture. Which is better? I do not know but I think Sun will be feeding off of the scraps of Oracle and IBM for years to come. I am looking forward to the day when Oracle, IBM or Microsoft purchases your company.
Rocky
Posted by rocky on January 18, 2008 at 07:24 AM PST #
I'd wonder how long it will take to see a ROI on the acquisition. Probably 20 years, given the 20X sales multiple.
Posted by ROI on January 18, 2008 at 08:29 AM PST #
Hi Jonathan,
I stringly believe this is a good move for Sun. It seems that your move to CEO role is showing the benefits now. Good Luck!
Posted by Catalin Ciontu on January 18, 2008 at 10:10 AM PST #
Looks like a nice way to get people onboard piece by piece. They use LAMP, and then start talking to sun for support over stuff. Then it's a matter of slowly switching it to SGMJ (solaris, glassfish, mysql, java).
Ok, that sounds a lot harder when I said it out loud. Hell, preconfigured & supported servers for SAMP would be good 'nuff.
And maybe sun support could send a monthly note that php's a really bad idea?
Posted by Lally Singh on January 18, 2008 at 11:55 AM PST #
Oracle tried to buy open-source MySQL but failed.
http://www.news.com/2100-7344_3-6040197.html
Posted by Joe on January 18, 2008 at 01:23 PM PST #
Well nothing much for me until i write stored procedure and functions for mysql in JAVA with @annotations
Posted by Niraj on January 18, 2008 at 03:08 PM PST #
Jonathan- The obvious question has been asked several times... After promoting PostgreSQL for some time, does Sun's position regarding it change in any way ?? I for one hope not.
Posted by Alan on January 18, 2008 at 03:31 PM PST #
по моему это поможет развитию MySQL :)
Posted by Александр on January 18, 2008 at 09:24 PM PST #
For historical sake - could there be a post about the conception of the idea. How did it initially come about - who first thought of it?
Where their others competing?
Posted by Silicon Valley on January 18, 2008 at 09:58 PM PST #
Jonathan, in 2006, MySQL joined the Eclipse Foundation. This was, and is, viewed as positive for Java, PHP, etc developers, given that a lot of these developers use Eclipse and MySQL. Can you comment on this interesting dynamic, given that Sun has not chosen (with good reason) not to join the Eclipse Foundation. Will MySQL remain a member of the Eclipse Foundation going forward?
Posted by MB on January 19, 2008 at 12:11 AM PST #
very good :)
Posted by sahibinden satılık daire on January 19, 2008 at 12:47 AM PST #
as for me very good :)
Posted by sahibinden satılık on January 19, 2008 at 12:48 AM PST #
Dear Mr. Schwarz,
even though I'm personally using MySQL and like it very much, I disagree that your acquisition of MySQL AB is good deal for Sun Microsystems and its shareholders. It's only a good deal for the venture capital guys who were invested in MySQL.
In fact, you grossly overpaid and squandered $1 billion of the financial cash reserves Sun could have spent much more wisely.
What would I have liked to see instead?
Well, read the excellent analysis of one of your Java champions:
JavaFX Is A Too Late Response from Sun for Rich Internet Applications
http://flex.sys-con.com/read/484240.htm
By: Yakov Fain
Jan. 10, 2008 05:45 PM
In particular I'm referring to the following paragraph I wholeheartedly agree with:
[quote]
JavaFX is a little-to-late response from Sun to the rapidly growing community of the languages, tools and techniques for development of the rich Internet applications. Fine, let's give JavaFX some time, it's still too young. But what can you expect from a scripting language built on top of Swing libraries? This is already outdated...even before its own release. I hope to see some real competitive sample applications showing the power of JavaFX rather than declarations that it's a Flash or Silverlight killer. This is not even funny.[/quote]
Conclusion: If Sun Microsystems doesn't invest aggressively in the performance improvement of Swing and puts this absolutely on top of the priority list, you will get crushed by Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Flex in the emerging Rich Internet Application space. Take that for granted!
Then, the Wallstreet boys will short down the JAVA stock to single digits.
Being a Java programmer, my future is tied closely to the success of the Java platform, so I am really worried about it. I have already spent countless hours on the JAVA platform and want to see it flourish, and not lose the war against .NET.
best regards from Europe,
a concerned JEE developer
Posted by worried Java JEE programmer on January 19, 2008 at 02:09 PM PST #
Oh, this really suprises me. I have never expexted that my previous comment, which was highly critical, would get past the moderator and published as a blog comment.
So I must say I take my hat off to you, Mr. Schwartz (or the moderator).
And btw, I also have to add that I love the Java Swing framework very much. It's well engineered and the concept is great. And at present the Java platform offers a much broader and more capable API set compared with Flex. (see the link to an interview with James Gosling provided below)
Nevertheless, I hope that my previous message really reaches you, because I'm not sure whether the Java champions voice criticismn loud enough.
best regards from Europe and my hat off again.
http://reddevnews.com/qandas/article.aspx?editorialsid=121
Interview with James Gosling, Creator of the java programming language,
by Kathleen Richards
January 2008
Posted by worried Java JEE programmer on January 20, 2008 at 06:35 AM PST #
Posted by Greeney on January 20, 2008 at 09:29 PM PST #
Congratulations Sun n Jonathan. I like this move.
U've taken pretty bold but calculated strategic steps after u assumed the throne. I surely wish the best for you.
Posted by Sun Fan on January 21, 2008 at 02:12 AM PST #
This is fantastic news and is sure to help so many worldwide. Hats off to everyone.
Posted by Steve Matyas on January 21, 2008 at 06:04 AM PST #
congrats to both Sun and MySql.
Posted by Thejesh GN on January 21, 2008 at 08:24 AM PST #
Congratulations for Both Sun and MySQL. I can't wait to see bundles of MySQL with Sun IDE and glass Fish. that would make developer's life much more easier and ready for development. This is a Great Step for the open source world
Posted by Mahmoud Elsaid on January 22, 2008 at 07:17 PM PST #
Congratulations. Good news.
Posted by Hayvanlar on January 24, 2008 at 04:00 PM PST #
Posted by Tech4Him - Technology with Integrity on January 25, 2008 at 11:54 AM PST #
Their users, as with Sun's, run MySQL across every major operating system - Linux, Windows, Solaris and the Mac; and every major system platform, from IBM, Intel, AMD, Dell, Sun
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How about supporting an install for Leopard? Sun should get on top of this opportunity and win over a ton of Ruby developers and Web 2.0 developers and designers. I can't understand how many months after the commercial release of Leopard several months ago that there still is not a package installer available for Mac. I'm sure it's coming but it's still nto on the site.
http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html#downloads
Their users, as with Sun's, run MySQL across every major operating system - Linux, Windows, Solaris and the Mac; and every major system platform, from IBM, Intel, AMD, Dell, Sun
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I've noticed on the new site design for MySQL that the links to the free version are pretty hard to find. I really hope that Sun will continue to offer a completely free, completely open source mysql and cultivate and grow that platform with passion.
As a general comment I do think Sun would benefit greatly be playing more friendly with the Apple OS and platform. At the root level, these are also important ones to water. Any industry conference with bloggers, social media, developers are at and they are working on apple laptops. I do think they'd consider and think about sun server and network options more often if Apple was included and kept completely up to date as a priority *nix platform.
A good time to get in the car, drive over to see Steve Jobs and figure out how you can work on some things together more actively.
Posted by Scott Rozic on January 25, 2008 at 04:25 PM PST #
A big news. Now I hope that Sun and MySQL would provide a great storage for j2me devices.
Posted by Adnan Siddiqi on January 27, 2008 at 04:23 AM PST #
MySQL generally recommends that you dump and reload your tables from any previous version to upgrade to new one.
Posted by Mark Guadalupe on January 28, 2008 at 04:43 PM PST #
I am a silent reader of your blog right from your very first. But this news has made my day. Lots of congratulations for supporting the open source community and its products. Keep your promises and there would be no need looking back.
Posted by Jawwad Ahmed Minhas on January 29, 2008 at 01:26 AM PST #
Posted by SpringSource Team Blog on January 29, 2008 at 04:00 AM PST #
Jonatham, congratulations on a very smart move and 4 consecutive profitable quarters. However, a word of caution. Well, a few actually - Sun has had a bad history on acquisitions. It will take a lot of commitment on your end to ensure that the MySQL acquisition doesn't go the way of LightHouse, NetDynamics, Kiva, Netscape, etc. That would be a tremendous loss, not just for Sun, but for the entire open source community. Here's hoping for the best.
Posted by oyun on January 30, 2008 at 04:47 AM PST #
Congratulations.
Posted by oyun oyna on January 31, 2008 at 08:44 PM PST #
cool ;)
this new its amazing, because now MySQL grow quickly...
Posted by lyonn on February 03, 2008 at 09:09 PM PST #