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Can Sun Make MySQL Pay?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the oops-to-late dept.

AlexGr submitted a nice followup to last weeks billion dollar Sun buyout of MySQL. He notes that "Jeff Gould presents an interesting analysis in Interop News: How can an open source software company with $70 million or so in revenue and no profits to speak of be worth $1 billion? That's the question Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz has been trying to answer since he bought MySQL last week. Like most commercial open source companies, MySQL makes money by enticing well-heeled customers to pay for an enterprise version of its product that comes with more bells and whistles than the community version it gives away for free. It appears though that the additional features of the Enterprise version are not enough to compensate for the revenue-destroying effects of the free Community alternative. What else could explain the surprising fact that MySQL has quietly filled out its open source portfolio with a closed source proprietary management software tool known as Enterprise Software Monitor?"

7 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. Mudslums Misteat Women by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    If I was a Mudslum woman, I would leave my oppressive religion.

    As it is I hate their Mudslum oppressers.

    Fuck Mudslums and Islamofascism.

    1. Re:Mudslums Misteat Women by scubamage · · Score: 0, Troll

      Please chemically castrate yourself, or jump off of a tall building before you have a chance to reproduce. Thanks.

  2. No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Sun will bankrupt. Right after Novel:

    http://boycottnovell.com/2007/09/09/mono-patent-novell/

  3. Value has nothing to do with it... by SerpentMage · · Score: -1, Troll

    How is it a company like AAPL at 200 had a higher valuation than a company like Walmart?

    The answer is that you only need a sucker to pay such astronomic values. Oh, wait Apple is trading at 137... Hmmm, a 40% drop, and only 20% drop in NASDAQ...

    --

    "You can't make a race horse of a pig"
    "No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
  4. Re:Java by Vellmont · · Score: 0, Troll


    If Sun goes down the same route that Microsoft is with Sql Server/.NET and integrates Java into Mysql, Sun gets a powerful new platform for the enterprise.

    So a crappy database server with some Java tacked on somewhere? No thanks. Microsoft has the advantage the SQL Server is actually a good database. If I wanted to choose something open source, I'd just pick postgresql, as it's a hell of a lot closer to the Oracle/SQL Server class of products.

    --
    AccountKiller
  5. Re:Why should this be a surprise? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    you lost me at mcdba.

    wtf is that? kind of like an mcse? "we have an issue, better reboot the server"

  6. Re:Why should this be a surprise? by SpaceLifeForm · · Score: 0, Troll
    Good luck. Even if you get better performance on the Microsoft platform in the short term, you are still using a proprietary OS that you have absolutely no control over, and will be at the mercy of the Microsoft extortion machine in the future.

    Look at how well the XP to Vista 'upgrade' went in terms of performance.

    --
    You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.