Thread: Oracle VP on MySQL

Interesting read at http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1567752,00.asp

It's an interview with the Oracle VP product strategy.  Interestingly, in five pages, there's no mention of PostgreSQL.
I've got to say that I agree with some of his analysis of MySQL, however, particularly these four paragraphs: 

"MySQL production releases have typically been two years apart, and the time from alpha [first release] to production
isabout 1.5 years. They released Version 5.0 in alpha status in December 2003, so a reasonable expectation for
productionrelease of Version 5.0 is mid-2005. 

It should be noted that MySQL Version 5.0 introduced stored procedures but not triggers or views, both of which are
essentialfor significant enterprise applications. It appears unlikely that MySQL could introduce these critical
featuresmuch before mid-2007. A whole wide range of additional capabilities including but not limited to XML and
analytic—i.e.business-intelligence—features do not appear to be on the MySQL radar. 

Furthermore, the low level of resources available to MySQL to fund development and the very small size of their
developmentteam raise questions about the viability of the MySQL business model and technology development path going
forward. 

It is unlikely that MySQL can rapidly accelerate development of their core product while acquiring and integrating
disparatedatabase technologies like the SAP DB (now called MaxDB) or MySQL Cluster. Indeed, this sort of 'engineering
byacquisition' is a distraction and fragments their development efforts." 

ned@nedscape.com (Ned Lilly) writes:
> It is unlikely that MySQL can rapidly accelerate development of
> their core product while acquiring and integrating disparate
> database technologies like the SAP DB (now called MaxDB) or MySQL
> Cluster. Indeed, this sort of 'engineering by acquisition' is a
> distraction and fragments their development efforts."

I'm more than half-expecting them to start a "campaign" to deprecate
MySQL in favor of MaxDB.

There are, after all, only two real choices:

 1.  They can disperse their efforts by trying to support and enhance
     both, and thereby do the "divide and conquer" thing where all
     they conquer is themselves;

 2.  They can pick one as the "way forward," and hang their hopes on
     it.

Seeing as how the place where the VC funds came in was in support of
SAPDB/MaxDB, so since their bread was buttered that way, it would seem
surprising for that not to win the day...
--
"cbbrowne","@","acm.org"
http://cbbrowne.com/info/unix.html
God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
-- Voltaire

Ned Lilly wrote:
> Furthermore, the low level of resources available to MySQL to fund
> development and the very small size of their development team raise
> questions about the viability of the MySQL business model and
technology
> development path going forward.

His alternative speech,

"Hey, MySQL is a great product.  Heck, we even use it here for our own
internal accounting applications.  Why spend 10k$ on a database when you
can get the same thing for a fraction of the cost along with the source
code?  Next round of drinks is on me!"

was narrowly voted down by the Oracle board of directors.

Merlin