Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>[Ron Mayer wrote]
>>...Oracle...recognized...solid database engineers with
>>a product with a growing customer base...
>>...made sense from both a recruiting and a
>>business growth opportunity to acquire them.
>
> Oracle isn't interested in the 395.00 market.
I think it's the larger MySQL customers (US Census Department, etc)
that they are interested in.
If the Census Department needs to look outside Oracle for low-end
databases, that opens the door to Access / SQL-Server / etc - which
really is a threat to Oracle.
On the other hand, if the Census Department can get all of their
database needs from Oracle, it's a much safer world for Oracle Corp.
>>On those grounds I could certainly see Oracle buying successful
>>postgresql-based companies -- again, for both the talented people
>>and the proven market for those products.
>
> For people maybe, but they really don't need the database.
Not the database itself, as much as the business knowledge of
how to sell low-end databases.
MySQL has a nice set of reference customers (MySQL AB's claims
include Google, US Census Bureau, Yahoo, Sabre, CERN, NASA, Associated
Press, Macys, Cox, Cable&Wireless, Nokia, Cisco, Sony, etc) - along
with a proven business structure (combination of product + marketing)
that appeals enough to those customers to buy it. Sure, Oracle was
probably in 90% of those places anyway - but clearly those existing
customeres saw the need for a low-end database that wasn't covered
by Oracle's existing offerings. Even if Oracle gets little revenue
from the low-end-DB-sales to those guys; if it keeps integration
between the Census Department's MySQL databases and Oracle-Expensive
working reliably, it's worth doing.
I'd suspect that any single postgresql-support company that had a
similar customer list would get offers from Oracle as well