Open Source Solutions

Oracle finally buying BEA Systems was expected. Once the Emerald City on Redwood Shores starts annexing a neighbor, it gets what it wants. A price has been reached and is being reported as 8.5 BILLION US dollars.

Sun Microsystems has announced that it is purchasing MySQL and will be competing with Oracle, IBM and Microsoft in the RDBMS market. Have I been living in a fog? Well, yes, since I live on the San Mateo Coast but I hadn't heard any rumors about this at all. In Jonathan Schwartz's words Sun is "Helping Dolphins Fly". Some other opinions are more along the line "Extinguishing the LAMP". The purchase price is ONE BILLION US dollars, which, I think, makes MySQL the first open source company to break the billion dollar ceiling.

My own take on the former is that Oracle needs BEA to really make the transition to being the lynchpin for SOA and MDM. And since my career has been moving in this direction as well, I'm glad that it's finally happened. Though being an OrAlum myself, I do have sympathy for some of the BEA folk with whom I've worked recently, and our HR consultant, who is also now a BEA, soon to be Oracle, employee.

And looking at it in that light, Sun's Glassfish and MySQL make a great open source platform for SOA and MDM. And since I've been much more focused on open source than closed the past three years, I'm really excited by this news.

Sun has been a great company since its inception. I've never been employed by them, but they have been a customer and partner over the years. And while I think that Scott McNealy is one of the all-time best corporate leaders, Jonathan Schwartz has brought Sun into the open source world with great strategic and tactical moves.

I think that watching Sun move MySQL forward in the Enterprise will make for a fantastic learning experience over the next few years.

These two moves may finally move SOA and MDM from hype through to mainstream adoption.