Обсуждение: Re: [GENERAL] Oracle buys Innobase

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Re: [GENERAL] Oracle buys Innobase

От
Chris Travers
Дата:
Tom Lane wrote:

>That's a really interesting angle --- not only does Oracle get rid of
>what they may or may not see as serious competition, but they get a
>chance to make some money at the same time.  I'm not convinced about the
>"only one table handler" part of your story.  Oracle certainly has the
>resources to fix up multiple handlers if they wish, and they wouldn't
>want to leave a loophole that MySQL AB could use to claim that their
>version is better.  The only one I'd see them dropping, in this
>scenario, is BDB (unless they could buy out Sleepycat too, which is
>perhaps not out of the question).
>
>
There is another possibility too...  I don't really see Oracle trying to
force MySQL to be GPL-only because that would have the potential to
materially harm their own market position.  Kill MySQL AB and just maybe
the community might become less MySQL AB-centric.

What is a larger possibility is to use this to contain MySQL AB.  Jack
up the license fees to the point that MySQL is no longer the
super-low-cost alternative.  This would also cut into MySQL's
profitability at the same time and help slow down the pace of development.

The only real downside is that I could see MySQL developing a
FirebirdSQL table handler if too much pressure is put on them.  This
might actually work OK since Firebird has an embeddable engine.  If they
do this then Oracle might end up with basically the personnel from the
Innobase acquisition and very little else.  Of course MySQL has
progressed to the point where larger license fees might not alienate too
many customers.

>I've been trying to figure out what it is that Oracle gets out of this,
>assuming that they don't see MySQL as a serious threat to their core
>business.  The most they can do is force MySQL AB to waste a year or so
>reimplementing something equivalent to InnoDB; which would hurt them but
>it's hardly likely to kill them.
>
A year delay with MySQL's pace of development and track record?

>  But with your scenario Oracle might
>actually make money out of the deal, which makes it make some sense.
>
>
I was assuming that this deal was primarily done to scare customers away
from using MySQL.  The timing could not have been more deliberate--
right before 5.0 is supposed to be released.  I think that the first
message was to scare business customers away from MySQL.  Secondly they
may want an additional inroad into FOSS.  Third, they may be after
personnel (i.e the buyout may be really a hiring bonus).

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
Metatron Technology Consulting

Вложения

Re: Oracle buys Innobase

От
Thomas Hallgren
Дата:
> There is another possibility too...  I don't really see Oracle trying to
> force MySQL to be GPL-only because that would have the potential to
> materially harm their own market position.  Kill MySQL AB and just maybe
> the community might become less MySQL AB-centric.
>
> What is a larger possibility is to use this to contain MySQL AB.  Jack
> up the license fees to the point that MySQL is no longer the
> super-low-cost alternative.  This would also cut into MySQL's
> profitability at the same time and help slow down the pace of development.
>
I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually and then pose that as a low-cost alternative.
They started with InnoDB because that is likely to lower the price tag of MySQL more then
they paid for InnoDB. MySQL's existing customer base is very attractive to Oracle.

Regards,
Thomas Hallgren

Re: Oracle buys Innobase

От
"Greg Sabino Mullane"
Дата:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


> I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually

No, MySQL AB is a private company and would probably never
sell to Oracle.

> They started with InnoDB because that is likely to lower the
> price tag of MySQL

You seem to misunderstand the power and wealth of Oracle. The cost of
buying MySQL AB would be insignificant to them.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200510170831
http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8
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Re: Oracle buys Innobase

От
Thomas Hallgren
Дата:
Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
>
>> I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually
>
> No, MySQL AB is a private company and would probably never
> sell to Oracle.
>
Huh? And since when are private companies not interested in being bought?

>> They started with InnoDB because that is likely to lower the
>> price tag of MySQL
>
> You seem to misunderstand the power and wealth of Oracle. The cost of
> buying MySQL AB would be insignificant to them.
>
I'm not sure the cost is insignificant to them, but even if it is, how do you figure that
affects my idea negatively? I think it's the opposite. The acquired customer base is huge
and that's what matters.

But, speculating is pointless. Time will tell.

Regards,
Thomas Hallgren

Re: Oracle buys Innobase

От
"Marc G. Fournier"
Дата:
On Mon, 17 Oct 2005, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:

>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
>
>> I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually
>
> No, MySQL AB is a private company and would probably never
> sell to Oracle.
>
>> They started with InnoDB because that is likely to lower the
>> price tag of MySQL
>
> You seem to misunderstand the power and wealth of Oracle. The cost of
> buying MySQL AB would be insignificant to them.

Not only that, "potentially crippling" MySQL by pulling InnoDB out from
under them would not only reduce MySQL's worth, but also has a massive
potential of reducing their marketshare, long term.

Until MySQL has to re-negotiate their contract with Inno^H^H^H^HOracle,
its all speculation though ... don't know when that comes due, but their
might be enough time between now and then for MySQL to recover on their
own (ie. come up with an alternative to InnoDB) ...


----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

Re: Oracle buys Innobase

От
Thomas Hallgren
Дата:
Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Oct 2005, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:
>
>>
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>>
>>> I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually
>>
>> No, MySQL AB is a private company and would probably never
>> sell to Oracle.
>>
>>> They started with InnoDB because that is likely to lower the
>>> price tag of MySQL
>>
>> You seem to misunderstand the power and wealth of Oracle. The cost of
>> buying MySQL AB would be insignificant to them.
>
> Not only that, "potentially crippling" MySQL by pulling InnoDB out from
> under them would not only reduce MySQL's worth, but also has a massive
> potential of reducing their marketshare, long term.
>
And in what respect would that be negative for Oracle? There will be enough customers stuck
on MySQL to make a purchase worth while anyway, reduced market share or not.

Oracle has two ways of making money from the InnoDB acquisition:
1. They charge for InnoDB licenses and thereby remove MySQL's profit. MySQL will probably
die if they do this and their customers will seek alternatives. I think PostgreSQL is a far
more likely alternative then Oracle. Especially if Oracle is the one who provokes the change.
2. They buy MySQL and charge the customers what they are charged today. Everyone is happy
and Oracle just expanded their customer base.

> Until MySQL has to re-negotiate their contract with Inno^H^H^H^HOracle,
> its all speculation though ... don't know when that comes due, but their
> might be enough time between now and then for MySQL to recover on their
> own (ie. come up with an alternative to InnoDB) ...
>
In which case Oracle would gain nothing from its purchase of InnoDB. I don't see that as a
very likely scenario.

Regards,
Thomas Hallgren

Re: Oracle buys Innobase

От
Chris Travers
Дата:
Thomas Hallgren wrote:

> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 17 Oct 2005, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>> Hash: SHA1
>>>
>>>
>>>> I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually
>>>
>>>
>>> No, MySQL AB is a private company and would probably never
>>> sell to Oracle.
>>>
>>>> They started with InnoDB because that is likely to lower the
>>>> price tag of MySQL
>>>
>>>
>>> You seem to misunderstand the power and wealth of Oracle. The cost of
>>> buying MySQL AB would be insignificant to them.
>>
>>
>> Not only that, "potentially crippling" MySQL by pulling InnoDB out
>> from under them would not only reduce MySQL's worth, but also has a
>> massive potential of reducing their marketshare, long term.
>>
> And in what respect would that be negative for Oracle? There will be
> enough customers stuck on MySQL to make a purchase worth while anyway,
> reduced market share or not.
>
> Oracle has two ways of making money from the InnoDB acquisition:
> 1. They charge for InnoDB licenses and thereby remove MySQL's profit.
> MySQL will probably die if they do this and their customers will seek
> alternatives. I think PostgreSQL is a far more likely alternative then
> Oracle. Especially if Oracle is the one who provokes the change.
> 2. They buy MySQL and charge the customers what they are charged
> today. Everyone is happy and Oracle just expanded their customer base.


#2 could be done after #1.  Depending on the way Oracle proceeds, they
might be able to do this without pissing off the community too much.

An extreme (and illegal) example of this sort of behavior was when AT&T
executives used to provide a list of telco's they were interested in
purchasing to J.P. Morgan and then J.P. Morgan would make sure their
loans were called, bankrupting comptetitors, so AT&T could purchase them
for pennies on the dollar (this was a major part of AT&T's earlier
antitrust case, which resulted in a consent decree in 1956).

>
>
>> Until MySQL has to re-negotiate their contract with
>> Inno^H^H^H^HOracle, its all speculation though ... don't know when
>> that comes due, but their might be enough time between now and then
>> for MySQL to recover on their own (ie. come up with an alternative to
>> InnoDB) ...
>>
> In which case Oracle would gain nothing from its purchase of InnoDB. I
> don't see that as a very likely scenario.

I think that MySQL was blindsided by this.  Just a little before this,
they said that they wanted to be the Ikea of the database market in part
because they didn't want to attract Oracle's attention...

Best Wishes,

Re: Oracle buys Innobase

От
Chris Browne
Дата:
greg@turnstep.com ("Greg Sabino Mullane") writes:
>> I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually
>
> No, MySQL AB is a private company and would probably never
> sell to Oracle.

A significant portion of it belongs to a sizable set of venture
capital organizations to whom money talks pretty loudly.

A good offer from Oracle ought to be attractive to them...
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "gro.mca" "@" "enworbbc"))
http://cbbrowne.com/info/spreadsheets.html
Rules of the Evil Overlord #25.  "No matter how well it would perform,
I  will never  construct any  sort  of machinery  which is  completely
indestructible  except  for   one  small  and  virtually  inaccessible
vulnerable spot." <http://www.eviloverlord.com/>

Re: Oracle buys Innobase

От
Robert Bernier
Дата:
On Monday 17 October 2005 14:17, Chris Browne wrote:
> greg@turnstep.com ("Greg Sabino Mullane") writes:
> >> I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually
> >
> > No, MySQL AB is a private company and would probably never
> > sell to Oracle.
>
> A significant portion of it belongs to a sizable set of venture
> capital organizations to whom money talks pretty loudly.
>
> A good offer from Oracle ought to be attractive to them...

Hey, don't forget MySQL AB is a European company. This won't fly like it would in the US, the anti-trust laws are
stricter.

Re: Oracle buys Innobase

От
"Jim C. Nasby"
Дата:
On Mon, Oct 17, 2005 at 03:22:49PM -0400, Robert Bernier wrote:
> On Monday 17 October 2005 14:17, Chris Browne wrote:
> > greg@turnstep.com ("Greg Sabino Mullane") writes:
> > >> I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually
> > >
> > > No, MySQL AB is a private company and would probably never
> > > sell to Oracle.
> >
> > A significant portion of it belongs to a sizable set of venture
> > capital organizations to whom money talks pretty loudly.
> >
> > A good offer from Oracle ought to be attractive to them...
>
> Hey, don't forget MySQL AB is a European company. This won't fly like it would in the US, the anti-trust laws are
stricter.

One can always hope... it would allow a friend of mine at a company with
some funding from a MySQL investor to ditch MySQL.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant      jnasby@pervasive.com
Pervasive Software      http://pervasive.com    work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf       cell: 512-569-9461

Re: Oracle buys Innobase

От
Chris Travers
Дата:
Robert Bernier wrote:

>
>
>Hey, don't forget MySQL AB is a European company. This won't fly like it would in the US, the anti-trust laws are
stricter.
>
>
Why not?  One would be hard to argue that removing MySQL from the market
place would have any adverse effect on competition.  Are competitors
then never allowed to merge in the EU?  Besides who would have standing
to sue? IANAL though and I am an American so I could misunderstand
something pretty fundamental.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
Metatron Technology Consulting

Re: Oracle buys Innobase

От
Robert Bernier
Дата:
On Monday 17 October 2005 17:47, Chris Travers wrote:
> Robert Bernier wrote:
> >Hey, don't forget MySQL AB is a European company. This won't fly like it
> > would in the US, the anti-trust laws are stricter.
>
> Why not?  One would be hard to argue that removing MySQL from the market
> place would have any adverse effect on competition.  Are competitors
> then never allowed to merge in the EU?  Besides who would have standing
> to sue? IANAL though and I am an American so I could misunderstand
> something pretty fundamental.

In canada we have a thing called the competition bureau, a company is not allowed to buy another company if its to
reducecompetition 

Re: Oracle buys Innobase

От
Robert Treat
Дата:
On Monday 17 October 2005 18:09, Robert Bernier wrote:
> On Monday 17 October 2005 17:47, Chris Travers wrote:
> > Robert Bernier wrote:
> > >Hey, don't forget MySQL AB is a European company. This won't fly like it
> > > would in the US, the anti-trust laws are stricter.
> >
> > Why not?  One would be hard to argue that removing MySQL from the market
> > place would have any adverse effect on competition.  Are competitors
> > then never allowed to merge in the EU?  Besides who would have standing
> > to sue? IANAL though and I am an American so I could misunderstand
> > something pretty fundamental.
>
> In canada we have a thing called the competition bureau, a company is not
> allowed to buy another company if its to reduce competition
>

By that definition no company could ever buy any other company even if they
wanted a mutual merger, so I don't think that is the case.  Oracle buying
my$ql wouldn't even cause the legislature to blink... if you dont believe me
just look at the track record of oracle with peoplesoft/sap, a market where
there really isn't much competition, unlike the db market where there are a
least a dozen legitimate competitors in the field. More importantly, my$ql
has said themselves numerous times they "don't compete with oracle" so using
there own words you can't put oracle on an anti-competitive practice
(whoops!).

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

Re: Oracle buys Innobase

От
"Marc G. Fournier"
Дата:
On Mon, 17 Oct 2005, Robert Treat wrote:

> On Monday 17 October 2005 18:09, Robert Bernier wrote:
>> On Monday 17 October 2005 17:47, Chris Travers wrote:
>>> Robert Bernier wrote:
>>>> Hey, don't forget MySQL AB is a European company. This won't fly like it
>>>> would in the US, the anti-trust laws are stricter.
>>>
>>> Why not?  One would be hard to argue that removing MySQL from the market
>>> place would have any adverse effect on competition.  Are competitors
>>> then never allowed to merge in the EU?  Besides who would have standing
>>> to sue? IANAL though and I am an American so I could misunderstand
>>> something pretty fundamental.
>>
>> In canada we have a thing called the competition bureau, a company is not
>> allowed to buy another company if its to reduce competition
>>
>
> By that definition no company could ever buy any other company even if they
> wanted a mutual merger, so I don't think that is the case.

And, actually, that isn't the case (or, at least, there are ways around
it) ... two of Canada's largest Nickel mines in Sudbury just merged (to
the chagrin of their respective unions) ... if that isn't reducing
competition, I'm not sure what is :)

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

Re: Oracle buys Innobase

От
Robert Bernier
Дата:
On Monday 17 October 2005 21:43, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> >> In canada we have a thing called the competition bureau, a company is
> >> not allowed to buy another company if its to reduce competition
> >
> > By that definition no company could ever buy any other company even if
> > they wanted a mutual merger, so I don't think that is the case.
>
> And, actually, that isn't the case (or, at least, there are ways around
> it) ... two of Canada's largest Nickel mines in Sudbury just merged (to
> the chagrin of their respective unions) ... if that isn't reducing
> competition, I'm not sure what is :)

True, I could have explained more. A competition board's mandate is by law to examine if two companies together is for
thepublic good. Sure there's big merges going on..... BUT only after they go through the process. Sorry, I thought this
wasobvious. 

Re: Oracle buys Innobase

От
Andrew Sullivan
Дата:
On Mon, Oct 17, 2005 at 06:09:59PM -0400, Robert Bernier wrote:

> In canada we have a thing called the competition bureau, a company
> is not allowed to buy another company if its to reduce competition

Yes.  Like Air Canada and Canadian Air. . . oops.  Wait.

It's a bureaucratic leap, for sure, but if the target company is in
sufficiently bad straits, nobody will stop it.  Being unable to
control your central technology might well qualify.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
I remember when computers were frustrating because they *did* exactly what
you told them to.  That actually seems sort of quaint now.
        --J.D. Baldwin

Re: Oracle buys Innobase

От
Thomas Hallgren
Дата:
Robert Bernier wrote:
> On Monday 17 October 2005 14:17, Chris Browne wrote:
>> A significant portion of it belongs to a sizable set of venture
>> capital organizations to whom money talks pretty loudly.
>>
>> A good offer from Oracle ought to be attractive to them...
>
> Hey, don't forget MySQL AB is a European company. This won't fly like it would in the US, the anti-trust laws are
stricter.
>
InnoDB is^h^hwas European ;-)

Regards,
Thomas Hallgren

Re: Oracle buys Innobase

От
Jan Wieck
Дата:
On 10/18/2005 11:07 AM, Andrew Sullivan wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 17, 2005 at 06:09:59PM -0400, Robert Bernier wrote:
>
>> In canada we have a thing called the competition bureau, a company
>> is not allowed to buy another company if its to reduce competition
>
> Yes.  Like Air Canada and Canadian Air. . . oops.  Wait.
>
> It's a bureaucratic leap, for sure, but if the target company is in
> sufficiently bad straits, nobody will stop it.  Being unable to
> control your central technology might well qualify.

There are similar control mechanism in Germany and I guess most other
countries. The goal of them however is NOT to increase competition as
much as possible, but rather to avoid any monopol building mergers or
acquisitions. Oracle swallowing MySQL would create a monopol? Cough!


Jan

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