Buying MySQL Could Save Sun

We knew that Sun (JAVA) has been lusting after a real software business in addition to Solaris. We knew that Sun "shares" -- that it digs open source, including Solaris and Java. And we knew that Sun had a love-hate relationship with Oracle (ORCL) and a hate-hate relationship with IBM (IBM) and Microsoft (MSFT).

So toss this all in a big pot, put on simmer and you get a logical -- if not three years too late -- stew: Sun Microsystems intends to buy MySQL AB and its very popular open source database. The announcement comes Wednesday with a hefty price tag of $1 billion.

The MySQL purchase by Sun makes more sense than any other acquisition they have done since they botched NetDynamics 10 years ago. This could be what saves Sun.

Sun can make a lot of mischief with this one, by taking some significant oxygen out of its competitors' core database revenues. Sun can package MySQL with its other software (and sell some hardware and storage, to boot), with the effect that the database can drive the sales of operating systems, middleware and perhaps even tools. Used to be the other way around, eh? Fellow blogger Larry Dignan sees synergies, too. And Tony Baer has some good points.

Who could this hurt if Sun executes well? IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Sybase (SY), Red Hat (RHT), Ingres. It could hurt Microsoft and SQL Server the most. Sun could hasten the tipping point for the commercial relational database to go commodity, like Linux did to operating systems like Unix/Solaris. Sun could far better attract developers to a data services fabric efficiency than with its tools-middleware-Solaris stack alone. As we recently saw, with Microsoft buying Fast Search & Transfer, the lifecycle of data and content is where software productivity begins and ends.

Sun will need to do this right, which has its risks given Sun's record with large software acquisitions. And Sun won't get a lot of help ecology-wise, from any large vendors. This puts Sun on a solo track, which it seems to prefer anyway. I wonder if the global SIs other than IBM will grok this?

Yes, it makes a lot of sense, which makes the timing so frustrating. I for one -- and I was surely not alone -- told very high-up folks at Sun to buy and seduce MySQL three years ago (I also told them to merge with SAP (SAP), but that's another blog). When Sun went and renamed it's SunONE stack to the Java what's-it-all, I warned them it would piss off the community. It did. I also told them Oracle was kicking their shins in. It did. I said: "Oracle has Linux, and you have MySQL." Oh, well.

[Now, Oracle has BEA (BEAS), which pretty much dissolves any common market goals that Oracle and Sun once had as leaders of the anti-Microsoft coalition. The BEA acquisition by Oracle was a given, hastened no doubt to the close by the gathering gloom of a U.S. economic recession.]

I'm glad the Sun-MySQL logic still holds, but Oracle has already done the damage with Linux, we saw how that Unix-to-Linux transition put Sun on its knees, and on the defensive. And we know that Sun has only been able to get one leg up since then, albeit refraining from falling over completely. Now, with BEA, Oracle with its Linux and other open source strengths -- not to mention those business apps -- will seek to choke out the last light from Sun, and focus on IBM on the top end, and Microsoft on the lower end. As Larry Ellison said, there will be room for only a handful of mega-vendors -- and we cannot be assured yet that Sun will meaningfully be one of them (or perhaps instead the next Unisys (UIS)).

Indeed, the timing may still have some gold lining .... err, silver lining. Sun has had to pay big-time for MySQL (a lot more than if they had taken a large position in the AB two years ago). And what do they get for the cool $1 billion? Installed base, really. Sun says MySQL has millions of global deployments including Facebook, Google (GOOG), Nokia (NOK), Baidu (BIDU) and China Mobile (CHL).

There's more, though. The next vendor turf battles are moving up yet another abstraction. Remember the cloud thing? Sun in sense pioneered the commercialization of utility computing, only to have Amazon (AMZN) come out strong (and added a database service in the cloud late last year). IBM has cloud lust. Google and Microsoft, too. Sun's acquisition of MySQL could also help it become a larger vendor to the other cloud builders, ie telecos, while seeding the Sun cloud to better rain down data services for its own users and developers.

And that begs the question of an Oracle-BEA cloud. Perhaps a partnership with Google on that one, eh? Then we have the ultimate mega-vendor/provider triumvirate: Apple-Google-Oracle. It's what Microsoft would be if it broke itself up properly and got the anti-trust folks off of their backs (not to mention a reduction in internal dysfunction). And that leaves loose change in the form of Sun, IBM, Amazon, eBay (EBAY), and the dark horses of the telecos. Sun ought to seduce the telcos, sure, and they know it. Problem is the telecos don't yet.

Surely if Sun can produce a full-service cloud built on Solaris-Intel (INTC)-Sparc that includes low-energy-use virtualized runtimes, complementary tools, and integrated database -- and price it to win -- well, the cloud wars are on. Sun might hang on for yet another day or two.

Comments

[mam:]

I think there is a fundamental problem with this thoery. It assumes that Sun can do with the database what Microsoft did by packaging Internet Explorer with Windows. Internet Explorer is a stand-alone application with wide-spread acceptance. MySQL does not share this luxury. Most commercial/vertical applications are going to be written specifically for use with Oracle or Microsoft's SQL Server. A company may be able to use MySQL for internal projects, but the corporate applications are still going to require that company to invest in other database implementations. This effectively reduces MySQL's use to the likes of Microsoft Access, very profitable for Microsoft but no where near the levels of the high end databases.

2008 Jan 16 04:20 PM

[Tayyab Qader:]

I believe that most of the companies are sick and tired of paying a heavy price of oracle DB implementation even on a low cost Linux and commodity hardware. These customers could take advantage of MySQL DB on Sun X64 series since this series is very powerful and not at all expensive. This could be a win win situation for these customers.

2008 Jan 17 01:05 AM

[Adam Hyder:]

This is the next best thing Sun has done after inventing Java. Sun can really make a killing here by bundling MySQL, Java and Solaris and tune it up to perform well on Intel processor(s).

The opportunity is huge for a free database with reliable replication and transaction support. Sun can make money from support and hardware.

2008 Jan 17 01:21 AM

[AnotherBadD...:]

Sun's story should be taught in the business school. This company has made a habit of making wrong decisions and of never accepting its mistake. Sun's commitment to open source and free software is killing it. Remember the time when it bought OpenOffice. Sun did not learn. Then Sun released a failed version of Linux as an OS. That OS did not o anywhere but Sun did not learn. Before that Sun invented and released Java. If it had found a way to make $50 for each copy of Java that someone downloaded, Sun would have been a rich company. Java did not make a penny for Sun. But Sun did not learn. Sun's desire to make Microsoft wrong is stronger than its desire to succeed in the marketplace. So Sun will eventually be right -- dead right. Right but dead. I can guarantee that MySQL will not make a penny for Sun. We will check in one year.

2008 Jan 17 01:53 AM

[Nag:]

Being a developer, i think they might also be trying to compete with Redhat as well.

Solaris 10, open source with a free database. Now all they have to do is ship apache or for the fact, SunOne Web Server is world class they need to make it open source too, for some extent. And there you go.. They just reinvented the wheel and they should be high up in the air.

Cheers, Nag

2008 Jan 17 11:41 AM

[loquitur:]

About that $50 per Java copy, Sun does get $50 per year per employee
for carte blanche use of supported Java. Also every Blu-Ray player
ships with Java, accruing per copy royalties to Sun. We aren't even counting the cellphones here.

2008 Jan 19 12:55 PM