Re: Oracle purchases Sleepycat - is this the "other shoe" for MySQL AB?

On Wednesday 2006-02-15 18:42, Leonard Soetedjo wrote:
> On Wednesday 15 February 2006 01:38, Tom Lane wrote:
> > merlyn(at)stonehenge(dot)com (Randal L. Schwartz) writes:
> > > Oracle purchases Sleepycat. From what I understand, BerkeleyDB was the
> > > "other" way that MySQL could have transactions if Oracle decided to
> > > restrict InnoDB tables (after purchasing Innobase last year).
> > >
> > > Does this mean the other shoe has dropped for MySQL AB?
> >
> > The deal's not gone through yet, but it sure does look like they want to
> > put a hammerlock on MySQL ...
>
> Is it possible that Oracle is trying to buy MySQL to kill off other open
> source competitor, e.g. PostgreSQL? MySQL has a strong number of users and
> therefore it is a good deal for Oracle to buy MySQL. Then by doing that,
> Oracle will market MySQL as the low-end alternative to their own database
> to give a full solution to the customer. And this would slow down the take
> up rate for other database competitor.
>
> I just hope not....
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Leonard Soetedjo

Given Sleepycat's position in the embedded database market, I think Oracle's
move to acquire the company stands on it's own without the need to assume it
is part of some wider defense against free software.

MySQL's current merchandizable market position can't be that desirable from
Oracle's point of view. MySQL is best in the lower middle part of the
database market. You have to sell lots of units and endure much headache to
make money there. Furthermore you don't need MySQL to do it. It would be
easy to just hobble and rebrand Oracle to do the same thing.

MySQL's only interesting technology is decoupling the MySQL front end from the
core database engine. (Which makes me wonder why so many on this list say
PosgreSQL couldn't be coopted. Wouldn't MySQL just have to change the
PostgreSQL parser?)

The real threat to Oracle from the free software community is that faced by
Microsoft with BSD *nix and Linux: COMMODIFICATION. Commodification is
already a real threat to Oracle and of the three big commercial databases it
is the least diversified. For IBM with DB2 database commodification would be
the same mixed blessing as OS commodification.

With 8.1 and autovacuum PostgreSQL finally became partially independent of a
full-time DBA. This means that in terms of numbers, probably 80% of the big
three database installations could be replaced with PostgreSQL with little or
no loss of functionality (with some proviso for the fact that SQL Server has
a much deeper and more user friendly interface). The remaining 20% of
installations would obviously be larger and might account for something like
80% of revenue, but the fact remains that the BASIS for database
commodification is well in place. There is good reason to expect FOSS
database market share to increase considerable over the next 5 to 15 years.

Over the medium term Oracle stands to be challenged hard by database
commodification. It has two viable strategic options. First it can try to
buy time for it's database offerings by slowing the rate of commodification.
Second, and more important, it can try to "own" as much of the inevitable
commodification on Oracle's terms as it can.

Note, the gratis deployment of BSD/Linux from a commercial perspective is not
interesting. Enterprise budgets are never so tight. The 20% of accounts
that generate 80% of revenues will pay as much or more for Linux as for
Windows if it results in meeting critical business needs. Google could pay
for Windows or Solaris if it wanted to.

Buying Innobase, and especially Sleepy cat immediately hedges Oracle AGAINST
commodification ESPECIALLY if they maintain BDB's dual license structure. On
the other hand, Oracle acquires some ability to throttle commodification by
slowing development of dual license software products that it controls.

Furthermore it has put itself in a no-downside position vis-a-vis MySQL and
MySQL's dominant market share of modest web applications. In the best case
Oracle acquires MySQL. It continues to offer MySQL on GPL terms but manages
the product's future to best insultate the company from near-term FOSS
commodification. (Commodification defense actually implies *gaining* market
share against FOSS competitors. Oracle wants to own the dual-license
commodity standard if it can.) If Oracle can't buy MySQL then it can starve
it for database backends, and MySQL may fold. In one scenario Oracle still
buys MySQL. At worst, MySQL is orphaned until a group picks up the GPL code.
Or MySQL may be denied backend engines and soldier on. In this case,
commodification is still slowed down as MySQL scrambles and its evident role
as the emerging commodity standard (based on market share) is called into
question.