Oracle, Sell MySQL To A Third Party Says MySQL Founder Michael Widenius

MySQL founder is asking Oracle to give the MySQL to third party to avoid trouble with EU regarding it's acquisition of SUN. According the press release on Michael Widenius' blog below;


MYSQL FOUNDER OUTLINES SOLUTION:
INSTEAD OF LETTING SUN SUFFER,
ORACLE SHOULD SELL MYSQL
(ORCL, JAVA)

Michael 'Monty' Widenius says European Commission is "absolutely right to be concerned" about proposed merger between Oracle Corporation [ORCL] and Sun Microsystems [JAVA], nominates award-winning EU strategist to support the proceeding

Tuusula, Finland, 19 October 2009 -- Michael 'Monty' Widenius, the creator of open source database MySQL and founder of the namesake company later acquired by Sun, today suggested Oracle should resolve antitrust concerns over its US$7.4 billion acquisition of Sun by committing to sell MySQL to a suitable third party. The proposed takeover has not yet been consummated because it is being investigated in depth by the European Commission as well as competition authorities in several other jurisdictions.

Widenius, who posted this press release to his blog, believes the EU's antitrust regulator is "absolutely right to be concerned" and called on Oracle "to be constructive and commit to sell MySQL to a suitable third party, enabling an instant solution instead of letting Sun suffer much longer."

The Finnish software developer and entrepreneur wishes Sun "all the best, but MySQL needs a different home than Oracle, a home where there will be no conflicts of interest concerning how, or if, MySQL should be developed further."

MySQL was the only Sun business unit to be mentioned in the EC's early September announcement of its in-depth investigation into the proposed takeover.

Acquirers commonly resolve regulatory concerns (before, during or after an investigation) by committing to divest problematic assets to a third party. By contrast, Oracle and Sun officials have thus far insisted they continue to seek approval of the entire transaction, irrespectively of Sun currently losing, according to Oracle, $100 million a month.

In order to support the regulators' work on the case, Widenius' new company, Monty Program Ab, works closely with Florian Mueller, a MySQL and EU affairs expert. Widenius said: "Florian gave MySQL strategic advice from 2001 on and was a shareholder until the sale to Sun in 2008, and with our support led an award-winning campaign against a proposed EU law on software patents. In August he helped us to demonstrate to the EC the need to investigate this merger and he is now on board again to meet the information needs of regulators, journalists and analysts."

According to Mueller, "every day that passes without Oracle excluding MySQL from the deal is further evidence that Oracle just wants to get rid of its open source challenger and that the EU's investigation is needed to safeguard innovation and customer choice. This is highly critical because the entire knowledge-based economy is built on databases."

Mueller demands more respect for the EC: "It's inappropriately arrogant for some interested parties to suggest that the EC has yet to understand the case. The EC is really doing a great job under huge time pressure."

In what he calls "a solution-oriented information effort that is now necessary after other parties made public statements on the case in recent weeks", Mueller announced that he will be available to journalists and analysts in Brussels (Wednesday, 21 October), London (Thursday, 22 October) and Silicon Valley (Monday, 26 October) to discuss the case.

In August, Mueller authored a position paper that Monty Program provided to the EC along with several other submissions. The latest version of the document was published today on the Internet.

Oracle BEA In A New Deal

In the heels of Sun's announcement that it will acquire open source database company MySQL AB for about $1 billion, database giant Oracle said it had reached an agreement to acquire BEA for $8.5 billion.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Software giant Oracle Corp. reached a deal to buy rival BEA Systems Inc. for $8.5 billion Wednesday, just months after its initial offer was rebuffed.

Oracle agreed to pay $19.375 in cash for each share of BEA, representing a 24 percent premium to where BEA's shares closed Tuesday.

Oracle said the deal is worth $7.2 billion, since BEA has $1.3 billion in cash on hand. The deal is expected to close in mid-October.

"For Oracle, this deal is a very big step towards completing our [goal] of being a strategic software vendor of choice for our customers," Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said during a conference call with investors.

tag: oracle, BEA, SUN, MySQL

Getting Coherence: Free Data Grid Webinar

If you work with Grids, then you know that it is not a simple matter. This year I completed two Grid Based projects. One was a Research Grid which was very large scale completely based on Linux and the other was a Data Grid, an Oracle running on Windows!.
The frist and the large was easier that at the latter stage we did not call it Grid Development or Grid Implementation. It was more like Rabbit Breading, easy and almost no effort.
Then there is this Oracle Data Grid running on Windows project. I would not say it is smooth but one thing I learned is that Gates and the group have put a lot of effort in to developing windows 2003 server. Still a way to go but acceptable. Oracle was one of my expertise so I had no issues there. But one big hardware vendor was a total disappointment. But we Goth through the project unscratched.
Now to the idea of this post. Oracle has prepared a webinar to introduce Oracle Coherence™ Data Grid. You will be able to learn;

• How Oracle Coherence capabilities function, such as coherent in-memory caching, dynamic data partitioning, and parallel query and process execution, and how they are being mapped onto grid infrastructures.
• How Data Grid capabilities function, how organizations are using them to solve complex computing problems and examples of how organizations are leveraging this on a global scale.
• How easy it is to deploy Oracle Coherence, which is generally operational within hours.
• How Oracle Coherence is fully configurable, providing total flexibility to change caching topology without code changes.

Topic: Getting Coherence: Free Data Grid Webinar
Date: Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Time: 11:00 a.m. EST
So if you are interested in Grid, Grid Technology, and or Oracle, Please follow this link and register. You for sure will learn a thing or two.
Tags: Grid technology, Oracle, gridtoday, oracle grid

Oracle releases 11G today!

Oracle Corp. released the new version of its database software, adding security features and support for multimedia files to its biggest-selling and most-profitable product.

The program, called 11g, is being introduced at an event today in New York. The new version lets customers track changes made to databases and encrypt data, Redwood City, California- based Oracle said today in a PR Newswire statement.

Oracle makes about two-thirds of its software sales from databases and related programs, and is counting on the new features to encourage clients to upgrade. In a survey of 400 customers, the Independent Oracle Users Group found that 35 percent plan to buy the new software within a year.

``It's usually an 18-month cycle for people to upgrade,'' Ari Kaplan, president of the Chicago-based customer group, said in an interview. ``Most people expect a solid release, and don't see a reason to wait.''

Shares of Oracle, the world's third-largest software maker, rose 11 cents to $19.83 at 9:36 a.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. They had advanced 15 percent this year before today.

The price of the database software is based on the number of processor chips used to run the program. Oracle often offers discounts of 20 percent to 80 percent, depending on the customer, said Donald Feinberg, an analyst with Gartner Inc. in Sao Paulo.

Oracle sells its software primarily for computers running the Unix and Linux operating systems. The company last year had 47.1 percent of the $15.2 billion worldwide database market, compared with 21.2 percent for International Business Machines Corp. and Microsoft Corp.'s 17.4 percent, according to Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rochelle Garner at rgarner4@bloomberg.net

Tags: oracle, oracle 11g