mySQL won't shine with Sun Acquisition

mySQL - the poster child of Open source DBs has being acquired by Sun Microsystems. this gives mySQL a shot in the arm as far as funding goes.. what remains to be seen is whether mySQL will continue on its own flavour of Open Source or change course as Star Office did?

this also puts Sun in direct competition with Oracle & IBM with their own brands of DB they are trying to push in the market. the vendor competition is always strong in the Linux areas where Oracle & IBM both place their products. Sun has now directly engaged with Oracle & IBM (both with their Open source marketing tactic blaring loudly).. claims to who is a better open source advocate are bound to come up soon...

This may not effect MS SQL market much given that organisations make their choice of platform earlier and choose database later on.

Another glaring issue IMHO is the integration of cultures of two organisations.. from what it looks like, Sun has a very corporate culture while mySQL has a more fun & open culture where singing songs is a tradition.. imagine singing song in Sun HQ :).. these differences generally become visible when people start leaving.. Sun will have to manage this difference - maybe embrace & assimilate or change the culture at mySQL..

However, a trend that can be discerned is the commoditisation of IT..  how do companies make profit in these cases? how does Red Hat make money when its entire business is based on a FREE product? or how does mySQL (& now Sun) make money when it is a FREE product? the business model around this that has emerged is of providing service.. and the ability to provide service increases when you make the product tough to implement to the degree that you would essentially need service to use that FREE product..

to me the future of mySQL from open source (as in FREE) seems challenging with the acquisition by Sun!

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