Sun Microsytems closed its acquisition of Swedish open-source database company MySQL AB, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz announced on his blog Tuesday. He also announced a global marketing and support program.
Sun will start “rolling out global programs to raise awareness and adoption of MySQL among more established enterprises,” Schwartz said. The main targets will be “institutions and independent software/service vendors looking to standardize on open-source architectures.” With enterprise support programs for MySQL, Sun is “going all-out to sign up new customers, extending MySQL’s reach,” he said.
But Schwartz also took the opportunity to snap back at some “snarky” comments that have been made since the acquistion was announced a month ago.
“There are still folks in the world who don’t believe there’s an economic model behind open source — they thus believe $1 billion is an outlandish price to pay for MySQL. The most extreme among them see Linux, OpenSolaris or companies like SugarCRM as nothing more than playgrounds for hobbyists,” he wrote.
Open source is a solid business model, Schwartz declared. “Companies that freely distribute their products, rather than limit access via pricing or proprietary licensing, are simply prioritizing adoption over immediate revenue.” He pointed to Microsoft’s recent announcement that it would make developer tools free to computer-science students.
“It’s interesting that weeks after the MySQL deal was announced that Schwartz feels the need to defend the acquisition,” said Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT, in an e-mail. “Such sensitivity — from an executive and company that have often demonstrated a ‘my way or the highway’ approach to public relations — suggests that Sun has been having trouble articulating its overarching MySQL strategy.”
Schwartz cited Marten Mickos, MySQL’s CEO, who he said describes the business market as a spectrum from those with more time than money to those with more…