Seems Like Old Times at MySQL

April 17th, 2008 by Richard Chart

I have been experiencing an amazing sense of déjà vu at the MySQL User Conference in Santa Clara this week, from the big announcement a couple of months before the event, to the keynote by the acquisitive CEO. The faces have changed from Lou Gerstner and Jim Manzi to Jonathan Schartz and Marten Mikos, but it all seems eerily familiar and continually takes me back to attending Lotusphere in January 1996 a few months after IBM bought Lotus.

Even the attendees have the same disposition as the Notes geeks a dozen years ago – a combination of pride in the validation of their preferred technology by such an industry titan, excitement about acceleration of product development and market acceptance, and a little trepidation about what negative changes may be wrought by the new owner, despite the assurances otherwise.

Of course there are many differences as well – IBM made an unsolicited bid for the public company Lotus, who initially fought the purchase, until Lou upped his offer to $3.5B. The Sun purchase of MySQL was a much more cozy affair, and with MySQL a private company, carried out under the covers. But I think the biggest difference is cultural – despite its size, Sun is a lot closer to MySQL in corporate culture than IBM was to Lotus, and that bodes well for the MySQL technology and staff now getting acquainted with their new home in the Sun Database Products Group.

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April 17th, 2008