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February 15, 2006 | Comments: (0)
News: Oracle tried to buy MySQL
Marten Mickos today confirmed with Stephen Shankland @ CNET that Oracle tried to buy MySQL. Not sure when, but it sounds recent (and, I suspect, more than once). It's not surprising that Oracle would make this move, though it surprises me that it wasn't IBM (which is not to say that they haven't tried, too - I haven't asked Marten that) - IBM has a clear strategy of using open source as a "low-end" alternative to its high-end products.
What is most impressive in all this (and just one reason that I think Marten is one of the top CEOs anywhere, and certainly in open source business) is Marten's response to Stephen's question as to why not sell:
"We will be part of a larger company, but it will be called MySQL."It's a different riff on the same theme that he said last night:
"Trying to kill MySQL by acquiring open source is like trying to kill a dolphin by drinking the ocean."Marten, like Matthew Szulik before him, has prized independence as a corporate virtue and has had the audacity to believe that he can compete with the Big Boys.
Give 'em hell, Marten!
Posted by Matt Asay on February 15, 2006 04:09 PM
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Personally, I feel MySQL could not've gotten a nicer compliment.
Question is, were the purchase of InnoDB and BDB before or after Oracle made it's proposition to MySQL?
Posted by: Roland Bouman at February 15, 2006 05:22 PMI think it is a shame, that MySQL did not buy InnoDB instead of Oracle.
Posted by: Suzanne Matiz at February 16, 2006 05:17 AMIn hindsight, I agree with Suzanne: it might have been a good idea for MySQL to acquire InnoDB; however, time moves only forward and not back (yet) ...
If Oracle had been able to acquire MySQL, JBoss, and Zend, they would have controlled most of the application portions of the LAMP / LAMJ stack (aside from Apache, which cannot be acquired). I think that this further supports my earlier position (in comments on this blog along with posts on my own blog) that Oracle is trying to put themselves in a position of control within the open source ecosystem. This makes me nervous.
Kudos to Marten for keeping MySQL independent!
Posted by: GeekyGirl at February 16, 2006 08:10 AMIf they really succeded in buying MySQL? I know that they bought InnoDB and SleepyCat.
Posted by: dlp at February 23, 2006 09:42 AM
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