MySQL AB announced that 2004 has been another year of record sales, partnerships, technical achievement and adoption of its open source database. By the end of the month, the MySQL database server will have been downloaded more than ten million times this year, solidifying its position as the world’s most popular open source database.
This year, thousands of companies have selected MySQL to power their Web sites, critical business applications and packaged software due to its superior performance, reliability, ease-of-deployment, and significant cost savings. New MySQL corporate and OEM customers include CitySearch, Conseco, Evite, Friendster, General Dynamics, H&M Rowells, Hillerich & Bradsby (Louisville Slugger), Harvard Business School, Hoover’s Inc., Lockheed Martin, Lucent Technologies, and Nortel Networks.
“MySQL’s success is a reflection of open source software coming of age in corporations and organizations around the globe,” said Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL AB. “As we grow as an enterprise software and service vendor, we continue to be indebted to our developers, active user community and industry partners for their invaluable contributions and feedback. But this is just the beginning — we plan to deliver even greater benefits to the database market in 2005.”
According to InformationWeek research published in November, open source databases such as MySQL continue to gain significant traction in mainstream corporate applications. Of the hundreds of companies interviewed, 42 percent of them are already using open source software in their production databases — with another 33 percent currently considering an open source deployment.
“MySQL has allowed us to save more than $1 million in database licenses and hardware costs,” said Shakeel Sorathia, director of Engineering for Citysearch. “At the same time, MySQL has significantly improved the performance of our site for our users. The performance of MySQL is lightening-fast.”
Technology Milestones
MySQL has delivered a number of significant product and technology achievements this year, including:
*MySQL 4.1 — this upgrade to the MySQL database server features advanced querying capabilities through subqueries, faster and more secure client-server communication, new installation and configuration tools, and support for international character sets and geographic data.
*MySQL Visual Tools — announced last week, MySQL has expanded its potential market by shipping a new line of easy-to-use visual database tools. The MySQL Query Browser and MySQL Administrator are designed to further simplify database management for developers, DBAs and users.
*MySQL Cluster — the industry’s first open source enterprise-scale database clustering technology for applications requiring continuous availability. MySQL Cluster combines the MySQL database with a clustering architecture, to deliver 99.999 percent availability to mission-critical database applications.
*MaxDB — the SAP-certified open source database established its position in MySQL’s product portfolio, serving both SAP and non-SAP customers with a range of licensing, support, training, and consulting services. During the year, MySQL released native PHP and Perl drivers for MaxDB, expanding the functionality, performance and benefits for application developers.
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