I’ve been thinking about this for the last day or so and have come to the conclusion that Oracle’s acquisition of Sleepycat Software (and Berkeley DB) is not about MySQL.
Even when combined with their previous purchase of Innobase Oy (and InnoDB), it’s not about MySQL.
With all due respect to Phil Windley (and Gadgetopia), you’re wrong. Oracle is thinking much bigger and more strategically than “put the squeeze on MySQL.”
Trying to put MySQL out of business would be a fairly short-term tactical move. I think Oracle is looking 5 years down the road and seeing what the world looks like as the commoditization of enterprise scale infrastructure software components continues. They’re seeing that they “own” a progressively smaller piece of that pie unless they act soon. The rumors of Oracle eyeing JBoss and others are completely in line with this thinking.
If Oracle can become a one-stop shop for folks building the next generation of big business applications, whether or not they use “traditional” Oracle software, the company manages to stay relevant in the new world–and that includes their lucrative consulting services.
Is this reminiscent of IBM’s approach to Linux circa 2001? It sure is.
Think bigger guys. Oracle’s not just a database company and hasn’t been for years.
Now, they could still end up putting the squeeze on MySQL along the way. But I suspect that’d be a happy byproduct of larger moves they’re making.
What do you think?
Jeremy Zawodny is the author of the popular Jeremy Zawodny’s blog. Jeremy is part of the Yahoo search team and frequently posts in the Yahoo! Search blog as well.
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