Oracle to buy Sun

Hi guys,

what's going to happen now?
http://www.sun.com/third-party/global/oracle/

I am still in the process of understanding the impact of this on a
wider scale. I would love to collect some ideas that can be presented
during community talks, as "How is Oracle acquisition of Sun going to
influence PostgreSQL" is a question that often and inevitably will be
asked - I presume. I would love to get a list of PROS/CONS of this
agreement as far as PostgreSQL is concerned, both from a technical point
of view and a marketing point of view, so I believe your ideas are more
than welcome!

Thank you.

Ciao,
Gabriele

--
Gabriele Bartolini - 2ndQuadrant Italia
PostgreSQL Training, Services and Support
gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)2ndQuadrant(dot)it | www.2ndQuadrant.it

You'd have to think MySql's demise is highly likely which would likely
be a good thing for PostgeSQL, more demand for non-oracle licenses and
lower costs in todays economy means people will look for ways to reduce
price with a good database and PostgreSQL will be a respected solution.

Gabriele Bartolini wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> what's going to happen now?
> http://www.sun.com/third-party/global/oracle/
>
> I am still in the process of understanding the impact of this on a
> wider scale. I would love to collect some ideas that can be presented
> during community talks, as "How is Oracle acquisition of Sun going to
> influence PostgreSQL" is a question that often and inevitably will be
> asked - I presume. I would love to get a list of PROS/CONS of this
> agreement as far as PostgreSQL is concerned, both from a technical
> point of view and a marketing point of view, so I believe your ideas
> are more than welcome!
>
> Thank you.
>
> Ciao,
> Gabriele
>

I think Oracle is still having strong marketing power and ability,
so I can't imagine the future of MySQL and Oracle,
but the most important thing is no one can stop
the technology commoditization and the industry movement
to the opensource. No one can stop.

I don't know the survivor of the opensource RDBMS will be PostgreSQL or not,
but I always hope so. :-)

Anyway, MySQL could not escape from Oracle's acquisition at last.
Very ironic.

2009/4/20 Melanie <melanie(at)dunslane(dot)net>:
> You'd have to think MySql's demise is highly likely which would likely be a
> good thing for PostgeSQL, more demand for non-oracle licenses and lower
> costs in todays economy means people will look for ways to reduce price with
> a good database and PostgreSQL will be a respected solution.
>
> Gabriele Bartolini wrote:
>>
>> Hi guys,
>>
>>  what's going to happen now?
>>  http://www.sun.com/third-party/global/oracle/
>>
>>  I am still in the process of understanding the impact of this on a wider
>> scale. I would love to collect some ideas that can be presented during
>> community talks, as "How is Oracle acquisition of Sun going to influence
>> PostgreSQL" is a question that often and inevitably will be asked - I
>> presume. I would love to get a list of PROS/CONS of this agreement as far as
>> PostgreSQL is concerned, both from a technical point of view and a marketing
>> point of view, so I believe your ideas are more than welcome!
>>
>>  Thank you.
>>
>> Ciao,
>> Gabriele
>>
>
> --
> Sent via pgsql-advocacy mailing list (pgsql-advocacy(at)postgresql(dot)org)
> To make changes to your subscription:
> http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-advocacy
>

On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 9:36 AM, Melanie <melanie(at)dunslane(dot)net> wrote:

> You'd have to think MySql's demise is highly likely which would likely be a
> good thing for PostgeSQL, more demand for non-oracle licenses and lower
> costs in todays economy means people will look for ways to reduce price with
> a good database and PostgreSQL will be a respected solution.

I would tend to disagree that it will die. The recent new release of innodb
(
http://www.innodb.com/wp/2009/03/11/innodb-plugin-version-103-for-mysql-5130-32-33-released/)
suggests that Oracle is not really interested in letting mysql die
completely. If I had to guess, I would say that mysql would probably be
somewhat revitalized by the acquisition. Sun has typically tended to be
where good ideas go to suffer a lengthy death... Oracle moves deceptively
yet true to its convictions, and never without a keen eye for the market.

My guess? Oracle drops a few dollars on innodb, maybe even a few back
into Mysql, and pushes it to new heights in the open source RDBMS world. I
see some tough competition for postgres coming up, but hey, competition has
been known to drive innovation before. I would say competitive times lay
ahead.

Just my two pennies :)

--Scott

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I'm sure you know more on this than I do, I've heard most developers
for MySql are basically gone, MySql has been competition against
Oracles higher cost program and my non-techie market experience is that
companies may start out trying to hold on to something they buy but if
it undercuts their main product, the main product wins out.&nbsp; Techies
are different though so perhaps..<br>
<br>
Scott Mead wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:d3ab2ec80904200702u3c8b3c1ci966f8a62179a82e8(at)mail(dot)gmail(dot)com"
type="cite">
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 9:36 AM, Melanie <span
dir="ltr">&lt;<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:melanie(at)dunslane(dot)net">melanie(at)dunslane(dot)net</a>&gt;</span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">You'd
have to think MySql's demise is highly likely which would likely be a
good thing for PostgeSQL, more demand for non-oracle licenses and lower
costs in todays economy means people will look for ways to reduce price
with a good database and PostgreSQL will be a respected solution.</blockquote>
<div><br>
I would tend to disagree that it will die.&nbsp; The recent new release of
innodb
(<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.innodb.com/wp/2009/03/11/innodb-plugin-version-103-for-mysql-5130-32-33-released/">http://www.innodb.com/wp/2009/03/11/innodb-plugin-version-103-for-mysql-5130-32-33-released/</a>)
suggests that Oracle is not really interested in letting mysql die
completely.&nbsp; If I had to guess, I would say that mysql would probably
be somewhat revitalized by the acquisition.&nbsp; Sun has typically tended
to be where good ideas go to suffer a lengthy death... Oracle moves
deceptively yet true to its convictions, and never without a keen eye
for the market.&nbsp; <br>
<br>
&nbsp; My guess?&nbsp; Oracle drops a few dollars on innodb, maybe even a few
back into Mysql, and pushes it to new heights in the open source RDBMS
world.&nbsp; I see some tough competition for postgres coming up, but hey,
competition has been known to drive innovation before.&nbsp; I would say
competitive times lay ahead. <br>
<br>
Just my two pennies :)<br>
<br>
--Scott&nbsp; <br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>

Scott Mead ha scritto:
> I would tend to disagree that it will die. The recent new release of
> innodb
> (http://www.innodb.com/wp/2009/03/11/innodb-plugin-version-103-for-mysql-5130-32-33-released/)
> suggests that Oracle is not really interested in letting mysql die
> completely.
Yep, I agree. I think however that they will somehow change MySQL plans
and give lower priority (if not abandon) the enterprise class features
and target. There is no advantage in creating self-competition, so they
will inevitably diversify. After all, they can now choose between Oracle
for an enterprise class audience, and MySQL for different target
audiences. On top of this, they will also have top class hardware they
can count on.

--
Gabriele Bartolini - 2ndQuadrant Italia
PostgreSQL Training, Services and Support
gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)2ndQuadrant(dot)it | www.2ndQuadrant.it

On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 10:11 AM, Gabriele Bartolini <
gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)2ndquadrant(dot)it> wrote:

> Scott Mead ha scritto:
>
>> I would tend to disagree that it will die. The recent new release of
>> innodb (
>> http://www.innodb.com/wp/2009/03/11/innodb-plugin-version-103-for-mysql-5130-32-33-released/)
>> suggests that Oracle is not really interested in letting mysql die
>> completely.
>>
> Yep, I agree. I think however that they will somehow change MySQL plans and
> give lower priority (if not abandon) the enterprise class features and
> target. There is no advantage in creating self-competition, so they will
> inevitably diversify. After all, they can now choose between Oracle for an
> enterprise class audience, and MySQL for different target audiences.

If I were Larry (My yacht only comes in at a measly 4 feet and requires
oars :-) , I would make mysql strong enough to play hard in the Open Source
market and maybe even take-out some low-end sqlserver instances with a
'next->next->finish' process to Oracle enterprise.

Mysql's biggest problem is that small departmental apps tend to outgrow
it. If you could have those same open-source peeps developing their apps
against mysql and there is an auto-upgrade path to Oracle enterprise....
then Larry effectively owns the high-end "big IT" market and the low-end "I
wrote this b/c I was bored" market. Then again, Sun did do a pretty good
job of alienating all but a small handful of mysql AB coders, there may
already be enough damage there that mysql's coffin is already being lowered.

> On top of this, they will also have top class hardware they can count on.
>
>
I think that's the big picture here:

"Nobody ever got fired for buying Oracle"

We know that they've got a solid DB product
They've bought most of the enterprise apps market
They're hijacking RHEL installs with their own linux distro
They want to play in the hardware market (
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10050379-92.html) at the high end
Why not breath some life into a hardware company that is well known in
mid to large IT shops?

For customers, it's a 'single-stop-shop' if you're wallet is deep enough
:-) That's the biggest problem with all of this; You'll be able to buy a
single box pre-installed with peoplesoft, but you would end up paying
through the nose for it.

--Scott

Scott Mead wrote:

> My guess? Oracle drops a few dollars on innodb, maybe even a few back
> into Mysql, and pushes it to new heights in the open source RDBMS world. I
> see some tough competition for postgres coming up, but hey, competition has
> been known to drive innovation before. I would say competitive times lay
> ahead.

My favorite posts/comments so far today:

http://gigaom.com/2009/04/20/oracle-to-buy-sun-for-74-billion/

"It allows Oracle to become a player in the cloud computing business.
More importantly, the company ends up acquiring MySQL, the upstart
database that has been viewed as Oracle’s achilles heel."

(Acquiring MySQL acquires the chief Drizzle architect and many of the
most active developers)

http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?blogid=14&entryid=2114

"The first, obviously, is for GNU/Linux. It's noteworthy that Oracle
feel compelled to address this directly in the press release:

Oracle is as committed as ever to Linux and other open platforms and
will continue to support and enhance our strong industry partnerships.

And if you believe that, I have a bridge you might like to acquire.
Oracle's Unbreakable Linux product has always been controversial, not
least because people weren't sure whether Oracle really supported it, or
just supported what customers said they wanted. Now that it has a viable
alternative, I'm sure we'll see Unbreakable Linux downplayed as a solution.

And what is sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander: Oracle's
acquisition of Sun means that it will also own MySQL – effectively, the
GNU/Linux of databases. There is no way that Oracle will promote MySQL
heavily; at best it will become the low-end alternative for customers
who moan that the main Oracle database offering is too costly. "

http://twitter.com/mjasay/status/1565505256

"Remember the olden days when sw and hw were sold as integrated systems?
Oracle just took us back to the future w/ the Sun acquisition"

--
http://www.opensourcebridge.org
http://www.chesnok.com/daily

On Monday 20 April 2009 16:24:32 Gabriele Bartolini wrote:
> I am still in the process of understanding the impact of this on a
> wider scale. I would love to collect some ideas that can be presented
> during community talks, as "How is Oracle acquisition of Sun going to
> influence PostgreSQL" is a question that often and inevitably will be
> asked - I presume. I would love to get a list of PROS/CONS of this
> agreement as far as PostgreSQL is concerned, both from a technical point
> of view and a marketing point of view, so I believe your ideas are more
> than welcome!

Note that these announcement all conspicuously omit any mention of MySQL. One
might expect that that part of the deal will be under regulatory
investigation.

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that's a good point.. not sure opensource database like PostgreSQL
would suffice to say Oracle doesn't have a monopoly. Of course, if
enough conversation were to be made illustrating how, in fact,
PostgreSQL is such a strong platform as to make MySql &amp; Oracle's
marriage not mean a monopoly, that would be good for this community too.<br>
<br>
Peter Eisentraut wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:200904201741(dot)03085(dot)peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">On Monday 20 April 2009 16:24:32 Gabriele Bartolini wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap=""> I am still in the process of understanding the impact of this on a
wider scale. I would love to collect some ideas that can be presented
during community talks, as "How is Oracle acquisition of Sun going to
influence PostgreSQL" is a question that often and inevitably will be
asked - I presume. I would love to get a list of PROS/CONS of this
agreement as far as PostgreSQL is concerned, both from a technical point
of view and a marketing point of view, so I believe your ideas are more
than welcome!
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
Note that these announcement all conspicuously omit any mention of MySQL. One
might expect that that part of the deal will be under regulatory
investigation.

</pre>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>

On Mon, 20 Apr 2009, Melanie wrote:

> not sure opensource database like PostgreSQL would suffice to say Oracle
> doesn't have a monopoly.

Adding MySQL to Oracle's market share is barely moving it. Oracle's big
competitors are IBM and Microsoft. According to
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUSN2634118720080826
at the end of 2007 it was:

Oracle: 48.6%
IBM: 20.7%
Microsoft: 18.1%

That puts everybody else combined at less than 16%, so at best Oracle
could finally reach a majority of sales here, far from a monopoly. Looks
like MySQL yearly sales are expected to be in the $75-$120M range for 2009
(based on 2008 figures and an excellent fiscal Q1), which gives them a
4-7% market share. They're somewhat evasive about that on their site, the
MySQL provided figures I saw were talking about market share among
open-source OS deployments instead.

--
* Greg Smith gsmith(at)gregsmith(dot)com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD

Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> On Monday 20 April 2009 16:24:32 Gabriele Bartolini wrote:
>> I am still in the process of understanding the impact of this on a
>> wider scale. I would love to collect some ideas that can be presented
>> during community talks, as "How is Oracle acquisition of Sun going to
>> influence PostgreSQL" is a question that often and inevitably will be
>> asked - I presume. I would love to get a list of PROS/CONS of this
>> agreement as far as PostgreSQL is concerned, both from a technical point
>> of view and a marketing point of view, so I believe your ideas are more
>> than welcome!
>
> Note that these announcement all conspicuously omit any mention of MySQL. One
> might expect that that part of the deal will be under regulatory
> investigation.

I doubt it - not with IBM and Microsoft (and maybe Sybase?) out there
already...

//Magnus

On Mon, 2009-04-20 at 14:31 -0400, Greg Smith wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Apr 2009, Melanie wrote:
>
> > not sure opensource database like PostgreSQL would suffice to say Oracle
> > doesn't have a monopoly.
>
> Adding MySQL to Oracle's market share is barely moving it. Oracle's big
> competitors are IBM and Microsoft. According to
> http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUSN2634118720080826
> at the end of 2007 it was:
>
> Oracle: 48.6%
> IBM: 20.7%
> Microsoft: 18.1%

Although your point is valid these numbers don't reflect reality. It is
like saying someone has X percentage of the operating system market. You
can't quantify how many servers there are that are running Linux because
most people don't pay for it.

The same applies to MySQL and I think that is the real reason why Oracle
won't care about MySQL. Not because it won't add market share but
because it won't make them any money. 50 million a year is nothing to
Oracle.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

--
PostgreSQL - XMPP: jdrake(at)jabber(dot)postgresql(dot)org
Consulting, Development, Support, Training
503-667-4564 - http://www.commandprompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company, serving since 1997

On Monday 20 April 2009 7:29:48 am Scott Mead wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 10:11 AM, Gabriele Bartolini <
>
> gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)2ndquadrant(dot)it> wrote:
> > Scott Mead ha scritto:
> >> I would tend to disagree that it will die. The recent new release of
> >> innodb (
> >> http://www.innodb.com/wp/2009/03/11/innodb-plugin-version-103-for-mysql-
> >>5130-32-33-released/) suggests that Oracle is not really interested in
> >> letting mysql die completely.
> >
> > Yep, I agree. I think however that they will somehow change MySQL plans
> > and give lower priority (if not abandon) the enterprise class features
> > and target. There is no advantage in creating self-competition, so they
> > will inevitably diversify. After all, they can now choose between Oracle
> > for an enterprise class audience, and MySQL for different target
> > audiences.
>
> If I were Larry (My yacht only comes in at a measly 4 feet and requires
> oars :-) , I would make mysql strong enough to play hard in the Open Source
> market and maybe even take-out some low-end sqlserver instances with a
> 'next->next->finish' process to Oracle enterprise.
>
> Mysql's biggest problem is that small departmental apps tend to outgrow
> it. If you could have those same open-source peeps developing their apps
> against mysql and there is an auto-upgrade path to Oracle enterprise....
> then Larry effectively owns the high-end "big IT" market and the low-end "I
> wrote this b/c I was bored" market. Then again, Sun did do a pretty good
> job of alienating all but a small handful of mysql AB coders, there may
> already be enough damage there that mysql's coffin is already being
> lowered.
>
> > On top of this, they will also have top class hardware they can count on.
>
> I think that's the big picture here:
>
> "Nobody ever got fired for buying Oracle"
>
> We know that they've got a solid DB product
> They've bought most of the enterprise apps market
> They're hijacking RHEL installs with their own linux distro
> They want to play in the hardware market (
> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10050379-92.html) at the high end
> Why not breath some life into a hardware company that is well known in
> mid to large IT shops?
>
> For customers, it's a 'single-stop-shop' if you're wallet is deep
> enough
>
> :-) That's the biggest problem with all of this; You'll be able to buy a
>
> single box pre-installed with peoplesoft, but you would end up paying
> through the nose for it.
>
>
> --Scott

What the heck, here is my 2 cents.

Oracle buying Sun means:
Keep Solaris because they have always wanted an OS to call their own
Keep Java because a lot of their existing customers use it.
Outside chance they hang on to OpenOffice because there is no love lost between
Oracle and Microsoft and anything Larry Ellison can do to needle MS is gravy.
Sell off the hardware division because if there was money in it Sun would have
not been up for sale.
Everything else is toast.
Number one activity at Sun for the immediate future is resume updating.

--
Adrian Klaver
aklaver(at)comcast(dot)net

>
> Oracle buying Sun means:
> Keep Solaris because they have always wanted an OS to call their own
> Keep Java because a lot of their existing customers use it.
> Outside chance they hang on to OpenOffice because there is no love lost
> between
> Oracle and Microsoft and anything Larry Ellison can do to needle MS is
> gravy.
> Sell off the hardware division because if there was money in it Sun would
> have
> not been up for sale.
> Everything else is toast.
> Number one activity at Sun for the immediate future is resume updating.
>

Excellent summary Adrian. This plus Joshua's observation that 50+ or so
Million dollars that MySQL will bring in might not be too exciting for
Oracle could actually mean that the SUN might set down on MySQL soon
enough..

Regards,
Nikhils

On Mon, 2009-04-20 at 15:24 +0200, Gabriele Bartolini wrote:

> what's going to happen now?
> http://www.sun.com/third-party/global/oracle/
>
> I am still in the process of understanding the impact of this on a
> wider scale. I would love to collect some ideas that can be presented
> during community talks, as "How is Oracle acquisition of Sun going to
> influence PostgreSQL" is a question that often and inevitably will be
> asked - I presume. I would love to get a list of PROS/CONS of this
> agreement as far as PostgreSQL is concerned, both from a technical point
> of view and a marketing point of view, so I believe your ideas are more
> than welcome!

It certainly explains why Sun bought MySQL in the first place: leverage
to force IBM or Oracle to purchase them. The high price tag for MySQL
seems worth it now, as a strategic investment.

I would think that Oracle will invest money in keeping MySQL "dumb",
e.g. Drizzle. Roll back the features that don't work and smooth the
upgrade path to Oracle for those that need it.

My finger-in-the-air forecast would be that Oracle will spit back out a
much reduced Sun in 1-2 years, sans MySQL.

Anyway, not sure it effects things too much for us.

--
Simon Riggs www.2ndQuadrant.com
PostgreSQL Training, Services and Support