Sun's Acquisition of MySQL Validates Open Source Model
Michael Arrington
4.84K Followers
The big news Wednesday morning is that open source database startup MySQL finally found a year’s worth of rumors that they were mulling over an initial public offering. Sun Microsystems (NYSEARCA:JAVA-OLD) has acquired them instead, for $1 billion. MySQL had raised a total of $39 million from Benchmark, Index, IVP, Intel, and SAP.
Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz wrote about the acquisition on his blog, lavishing praise on MySQL:
“MySQL is by far the most popular platform on which modern developers are creating network services. From Facebook, Google (GOOG) and Sina.com to banks and telecommunications companies, architects looking for performance, productivity and innovation have turned to MySQL. In high schools and college campuses, at startups, at high performance computing labs and in the Global 2000. The adoption of MySQL across the globe is nothing short of breathtaking. They are the root stock from which an enormous portion of the web economy springs.”
Startups with similar business models - managing a free open source project and bolting for-pay services on as a business model, will be happy to see this. Wordpress and OpenAds are two that we follow closely.
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Michael Arrington is the founder of the Crunch Network and editor of TechCrunch (http://techcrunch.com), a highly influential Silicon Valley blog "dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies." He is on the board of Foldera, a web-based organizer, and is an investor in Daylife, a news startup. He has served as a corporate lawyer, been involved in sales and business development at RealNames and co-founded Achex, which was sold to First Data Corp. Arrington also founded two companies in Canada and was COO at Razorgator. His consulting stints have included SnapNames, Verisign and Spotback.