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January 20, 2008 | Comments: (0)
MySQL Co. not big enough for some customers?
Jonathan has a nice post with additional explanations on the MySQL deal, seeing as one or two folks have questioned it. (Note that the second link is for your amusement via Sun's Simon Phipps blog).
Jonathan writes:
"Where are the revenue synergies?The more interesting question is "where aren't the synergies?" Wherever MySQL is deployed, whether the user is paying for software support or not, a server will be purchased, along with a storage device, networking infrastructure - and over time, support services on high value open platforms. Last I checked, we have products in almost all those categories.
In addition, the single biggest impediment to MySQL's growth wasn't the feature set of their technology - which is perfectly married to planetary scale in the on-line/web world. The biggest impediment was that some traditional enterprises wanted a Fortune 500 vendor ("someone in a Gartner magic quadrant") to provide enterprise support. Good news, we can augment MySQL's great service team with an extraordinary set of service professionals across the planet - and provide global mission critical support to the biggest businesses on earth."
I can understand the part about synergies for Sun. But I'm confused that Sun, and/or MySQL believe that the major impediment to MySQL growth was that MySQL wasn't a big enough vendor to offer enterprise support.
Huh? I guess Red Hat didn't get that memo. Could something other than vendor size be relevant to a customer's willingness to pay for enterprise support once an OSS product gets as ubiquitous as MySQL?
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 20, 2008 09:27 PM
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While I wouldn't want to use MySQL in it's current state in the enterprise for real database use (i.e. 10s of GB of data supporing hundreds/thousands of users). I hope Sun can help MySQL gain adoption and flexibility in the enterprise. Open source is the shape of things to come but ultimately I think the enterprise will choose the option best suited for the task, not necessarily the most open one.
Posted by: Orrin at January 21, 2008 06:58 AMI hate it when snobby DBAs or managers scoff at MySQL as if it isn't ready to play with the big boys. Google called, they'd like to loan you a clue.
Posted by: Matt at January 21, 2008 02:04 PMSelling licenses under the GPL is absurd. Since when does the GPL allow people to sell use of software? These arn't support fees (like how Red Hat did with Linux), but required licenses to use the DB by any non-GPL code.
Postgresql is still the way to go for a real OSS DB that can scale in the enterprise.
Posted by: Randy at January 23, 2008 09:01 AMI'm only too happy to have "the DBA suits" turn up their noses at MySQL. Keeps their applications costly.
I've been using MySQL in a world-wide server-side application since 2001 with great success.
-S
Posted by: Sunnyboy at January 23, 2008 11:25 AM
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