Now that most of the buzz around Sun’s MySQL acquisition and Oracle upping its offer for BEA has cleared, one thing became clear. It could not have been mere coincidence that Oracle’s much larger deal for BEA was announced simultaneously as its biggest open source competitor was brought into a larger and more financially sound fold.

Larry Ellison is no fool. I have enormous respect for him, and even when his antics are blatant, they are effective. Oracle was able to deflect some of the ballyhoo around Sun getting into the database game in a major way by shifting attention to its middleware investment, and its whole Fusion concept. There is no doubt that Ellison and Oracle are threatened by what MySQL represents. And I don’t think a straight up acquisition of MySQL (which Oracle could obviously have afforded) would have made sense. The culture clash and backlash from the community would have actually done more to damage Oracle than the financial bite MySQL’s revenues presently take from Oracle’s database business. MySQL is not a singular threat - open source in general is forcing shifting power plays, and Ellison, Gates, Benioff, etc. know this.

The old model is slowly being chipped away by hybrid and other alternative software development, delivery and revenue models. Our CEO makes a nice point here. I especially like John’s point about the lock-in model not being necessary. I don’t think anyone can underestimate the power shift that is slowly but surely happening here…

A rare photo of a hot dog eating a hot dog…