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"Oracle is the Only Winner In the Sun-MySQL Deal," Claims Dvorak

But his allegations of conspiracy are not cutting much mustard in the wider technology community
By Jeremy Geelan
Article Rating:
January 21, 2008 07:30 AM EST
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 12,304
"I'm close to being convinced that Oracle wanted to buy MySQL to kill the product, but knew it couldn't pull off the stunt itself. So it sent in a stooge to do the job." That, in a nutshell, is John Dvorak's (unqualified?) opinion on the $1BN deal last week. But his allegations of conspiracy are not cutting much mustard in the wider technology community, many of who regard his arguments as flawed.

Dvorak's allegation rests on a financial premiss: "Sun cannot actually afford to spend a $1 billion on a company producing a mere $60 million in revenue and working outside its core competencies."

From there, he assumes that the deal must have been masterminded (or does he mean actually funded?) by a bigger fish altogether: Oracle. Or, as Dvorak colorfully chooses to express it...

"So who can afford it? Oracle, that's who. This deal stinks from top to bottom."

Dvorak's interpretation of the transaction is that Sun was sent forth to buy MySQL as Oracle's "stooge" (his word). And he doesn't stop there, either. Castigating Sun for its history of what he calls "an awful track record" of acquisitions, he anticipates that the MySQL community will vote with its feet and promptly fork the MySQL codebase:

"The only good news is that since MySQL is an open-source initiative, an immediate development fork will occur with a new open-source relational database appearing within a year or two, based on aspects of the original code.

The original MySQL will simply vanish over time, along with Sun's billion. Exactly how painful this transition will be for current users of MySQL remains to be seen."

The responses to Dvorak's musings, which appeared on Friday at Marketwatch.com, range from a few posts supporting him to rather more accusing him of blowing smoke.

Published January 21, 2008 – Reads 12,304
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Jeremy Geelan is Sr. Vice-President of SYS-CON Media & Events. He is Conference Chair of the all-new International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo series, of the International Virtualization Conference & Expo series, of AJAXWorld RIA Conference & Expo series, and of the long-running SOAWorld Conference & Expo series. He's founder of Cloud Computing Journal, Web 2.0 Journal, AJAX & RIA Journal and other leading SYS-CON titles. From 2000-6, as first editorial director and then group publisher of SYS-CON Media, he was responsible for the development of all new titles and i-Technology portals for the firm, and regularly represents SYS-CON at conferences and trade shows, speaking to technology audiences both in North America and overseas. He is executive producer and presenter of "Power Panels with Jeremy Geelan" on SYS-CON.TV.

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