Yep, I agree. I think however that they will somehow change MySQL plans and give lower priority (if not abandon) the enterprise class features and target. There is no advantage in creating self-competition, so they will inevitably diversify. After all, they can now choose between Oracle for an enterprise class audience, and MySQL for different target audiences.
If I were Larry (My yacht only comes in at a measly 4 feet and requires oars :-) , I would make mysql strong enough to play hard in the Open Source market and maybe even take-out some low-end sqlserver instances with a 'next->next->finish' process to Oracle enterprise.
Mysql's biggest problem is that small departmental apps tend to outgrow it. If you could have those same open-source peeps developing their apps against mysql and there is an auto-upgrade path to Oracle enterprise.... then Larry effectively owns the high-end "big IT" market and the low-end "I wrote this b/c I was bored" market. Then again, Sun did do a pretty good job of alienating all but a small handful of mysql AB coders, there may already be enough damage there that mysql's coffin is already being lowered.
On top of this, they will also have top class hardware they can count on.
I think that's the big picture here:
"Nobody ever got fired for buying Oracle"
We know that they've got a solid DB product They've bought most of the enterprise apps market They're hijacking RHEL installs with their own linux distro They want to play in the hardware market (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10050379-92.html) at the high end Why not breath some life into a hardware company that is well known in mid to large IT shops?
For customers, it's a 'single-stop-shop' if you're wallet is deep enough :-) That's the biggest problem with all of this; You'll be able to buy a single box pre-installed with peoplesoft, but you would end up paying through the nose for it.
