Oracle: what happens to MySQL and OpenSolaris?

Sam Varghese
Tuesday, 21 April 2009 05:50

Business IT - Technology

With MySQL, Oracle finds itself saddled with something that is akin to a little brother. Though MySQL has been extremely successful, it has never been regarded as a major threat by Oracle. There have been some areas of overlap but Oracle has always been sold as a plaything for the big boys.

Indeed, in 2006 when Oracle acquired the small Finnish software maker Innobase, which provides the InnobasDB storage engine used by MySQL, there were doubts that the open source firm would be able to continue to negotiate favourable terms for renewing its Innobase licence.

The doubts remained just that - doubts. MySQL did look to other storage engines at the time and advertised this fact, but Oracle did not attempt to do anything to stifle MySQL on this front.

Hence, it is reasonable to assume that MySQL will continue as it was, under Oracle. It is doubtful if the culture that its founders created - the culture which could not flourish under Sun and which led to Monty Widenius walking out - will ever return. But it is too valuable a property to ever contemplate either letting it go again or making dramatic changes.

It is logical to assume that we will see more proprietary add-ons available for MySQL, features that have been a selling point for Oracle itself, provided these additions do not eat into its own market.

Ellison will, no doubt, relish the competition with Microsoft that Java brings about vis-a-vis .NET - every technology company head's secret wet dream is to bring about the destruction of Microsoft. (On a much smaller level, he will also be competing with Novell and its open source copy of .NET, Mono.)

This competition is in Java's favour; despite all its so-called virtues, .NET has never managed to gain as much traction in the enterprise space as Java.

One would, thus, expect to see a great deal of attention given to Java, given that it is the main open source product that can consolidate Oracle's position in the business sphere. The chance to score at the expense of Microsoft - and return, with interest, numerous humiliations over the years - would, of course, be a powerful driving factor.

Unlike Sun, which was unable to decide whether it would fully go down the open source path or not, Oracle's thinking appears to be more organised. The company is quite low-key when it comes to the media. But when it comes to grabbing and holding a market sector, Oracle appears to know what to do.