The Sun/MySQL Debacle 3
Got news this morning that Sun is acquring MySQL AB- what an unsettling way to start the day.
To me, this move by Sun signals their total desperation. Their hardware business has been decimated by the commoditization of high-performance computing, as well as by virtualization technology. Their software business has been decimated by their own mismanagement of some real innovations, as well as the rise by Linux to almost complete domination of the non-Fortune 500 datacenter market (that is, while Fortune 500 companies might buy Sun's overpriced machines, the Fortune Other 50000 use mostly commodity servers running Linux). So now, Sun is desperate for some traction into those other 50000 companies.
Given Sun's history of how they manage products, leaving innovation to wither and die while they chase the million-dollar service contracts at the Fortune 50, I'd say things may not bode well for MySQL.
Comments
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Agreed. Sad.
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I think they're showing us that they are committed to become a software company... and to stay close to OSS... I'm not that pessimistic...
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Hum. You seem to have a real beef with sun? Do you have hard figures to back up your claim about SUN's hardware business being "decimated"? I don't know about the highend but the xfire series are hands down the best bang-for-buck x86 pizzaboxes that you can buy these days. We've just ordered a fresh set of x4150s and walking through our colo datacener I can tell that we're not alone in loving SUN hardware. Oh, we run linux on it, fwiw.
