Today’s IT news space is abuzz with two major takeover announcements, and I thought I would share my thoughts on them…
First of all, I want to offer my congratulations to Marten Mickos – I really admire his accomplishments and what he made of MySQL.
1. Sun buys MySQL
This is good news, both for open source users and for open source vendors. For users, it means that MySQL will get the funding it needs to accelerate its growth, and take the product to the next step. MySQL is already a very strong product, with access to the vast resources of Sun it will become the killer database. Beware, proprietary database vendors!
For vendors (like Talend), it is one more proof point that open source is legitimate. For a major player like Sun to acquire MySQL, they must believe in the model. They did not spend $1b to play catch up or to fill a gap. They are clearly embarking in open source and are investing into it.
For competitors: MySQL was already a strong technical contender to Oracle and the other database guys, now it is also a serious business competitor. CIOs will no longer be worried about the solidity of the company when they make their choice. And it will be a lot more difficult for Oracle’s sales people to play out the FUD strategy.
As far as we are concerned, Talend will continue to go after the clients of proprietary vendors, starting with Informatica, leveraging the power of the open source model, our partnerships with other open source vendors and proprietary vendors, our key role in the Open Solutions Alliance, etc.
2. Oracle buys BEA
When Larry wants something, he gets it (with the notable exception of JBoss). He just ends up paying a premium – but he has deep pockets. See Siebel, PeopleSoft, now BEA.
Of course, that’s bad news for the users – it means less choice for them, and more dependency on super large vendors. One more thing they’ll have to buy from their Oracle rep.
2007 was a record year in the M&A field. In the data integration/BI space alone, DataMirror and Cognos became part of IBM, Hyperion was acquired by Oracle, Business Objects merged with SAP, persistent rumors about Informatica keep floating around… Let’s see what 2008 has in store for us.
Bertrand
