Who would've thunk it? MySQL owns MS virtual territory

Image by betsyweber via Flickr

With Microsoft's heavy involvement in SecondLife, you'd think that its back-end DB would be SQL Server, wouldn't you? Well, you'd be half right - it's got SQL in there somewhere.

Is Oracle's Acquisition of Sun a Formality?

Image via Wikipedia

Not if the European Commision, the EU's competition authority (who Microsoft know only too well) have anything to do with it. At least, according to newsfactor.

When I first heard about Oracle's move on Sun and, therefore Sun's own fairly recent acquisition, MySQL, I thought it would all be a done deal by the end of the summer. Little did I know it would still be dragging on now.
That's not to say I'm not glad someone is stepping in and contesting the deal on anti-competitive grounds.

As I've mentioned once or twice in the past, I love MySQL and would hate to see it suppressed or, even worse, blown out of the market completely. I agree with Oracle's claim that they are not in competition with MySQL because they are aimed at completely different market sectors, but I still don't believe Oracle have the intention to allow MySQL to develop any further.

Hopefully, if there is any justice, the EU Commission will find some way to protect MySQL without denying Sun the investment they undoubtedly need. Every day lost in this challenge costs Sun a whopping $3.4M.

Related articles

• Oracle plays hardball with Euro regulators (theregister.co.uk)
• MySQL Creator Wants War with Oracle (apache.sys-con.com)
• Microsoft to sing at EC Oracle hearing (theregister.co.uk)
• EU rebuffs Oracle's criticism of Sun merger investigation (infoworld.com)
• Problems ahead for MySQL? (tonyscott.org.uk)

Can anyone stop Oracle?

A few weeks back, when IBM turned down Sun's offer to acquire them, I thought they were crazy. You would think they would at least try to block their main competitor, right? Wrong. Oracle have been busy doing some buying of their own of the last few years, gradually building up momentum, looking for a big name acquisition.

Image via CrunchBase

Then, they got one.

Weeks have passed, and it's still hard to say what the future will hold for Sun, and for Oracle. While in the past they have been pretty much steamrollering the smaller companies they've got their hands on, a company of the stature of Sun - who gave us Java and Solaris - requires different treatment. This should be an alliance, a meeting of minds.

However, what makes this approach even more interesting, is that Sun only recently acquired Oracle's greatest open source competitor, MySQL.

Image via CrunchBase

Now it's personal. Reading around on TheRegister and Slashdot, amongst other places, I'm getting a bit worried. I actually care about MySQL. I've been using it since I started to work with databases and especially since I started to develop web applications. It's default beep, sounding every time I type something stupid into it's command line, is music to my ears.

Where will things go from here? Who'll be next?

Set up LAMP on the Hardy Heron

No, it's not a clue from a cryptic crossword, but rather Linux, Apache, MySql and PHP - all ready to go as one of the install options on Ubuntu 8.04.

It's worth doing, because by doing it this way, you'll save time on setting them up separately and trying to get them to work together. Read more here.

Building an Object Model in PHP

Follow the link to read through a very succinct tutorial on how to build a combo-box populated by values retrieved from a MySQL database (Note: the example can easily be adapted for PostGre and not-so-easily for DB2 - but why would you want to use DB2?)