Unshakeable MySQL

Matt Aslett interviewed Mårten Mickos (MySQL CEO) and during the interview, Mårten admitted that Oracle is hinting that they will release "Unbreakable MySQL" and essentially offer support for MySQL more cheaply.  If Oracle is actually considering this, then they still really really don't get it: 

• As bad an idea as "Unbreakable Linux" might be, it is at least a product complement to Oracle's own product.  "Unbreakable MySQL" is a competing product, and not even Oracle's applications business would benefit from a "less expensive database" unless Oracle actually wants to move all its applications to MySQL and completely destroy their Oracle database business.
• The actual MySQL Network offering is much more than mere support, so Oracle would be offering an inferior product, instead of a competing product.  This is not about offering an Oracle-tuned Red Hat Linux.  If I had to choose between Oracle and MySQL, I know which set of engineers I would want supporting my MySQL Cluster high-availability environment. 
• With today's announcement they are even more price competitive than they've ever been.

MySQL actually made two announcements today.  MySQL has recorded their best year ever in their 11 year history:

• They've seen record growth in enterprise subscriptions and incredible marque customers. 
• They've released new technology around high-availability clusters and their pluggable architecture.
• Their community of users continues to grow as strongly, feeding their customer base. 

Zack Urlocker (MySQL VP Marketing) started the week with a post on disruptive business models in general, and followed up today with a post on MySQL's own business model and its inventiveness.  MySQL AB is a company that deeply understands that open source software is an excellent business tool, and how to best apply it.  They understand that the software and its source code are a great customer engagement mechanism, and that the product they sell to solve customer problems is much more than just the database software. 

Congratulations, Mårten, Zack, and the rest of the great team at MySQL AB.  Well done!

Comments

[Uli Romahn]

I believe that the only reason for Oracle to spread such news would be to spread FUD amongst the open source users and the MySQL community specifically.
Oracle must believe by offering an identical or "better" product at a significant lower price than its competition, even if it does not make sense to their own business model, they will eventually "kill" the competition. In addition, their marketing could get some leads from that campaign by getting calls from people that might be interested in that offering, even though Oracle might not be really serious about this.

Oracle seems to exhibit such a behavioral pattern over the past few months - but I have to agree with Stephe: they just don't get it.