27/01/2010 Is Oracle protecting core business from MySQL?

Now that EU finally approved the SUN purchase by Oracle, and while Oracle-Sun conglomerate is due to clarify their strategy today, here is Ingres CEO Roger Burkhardt's personal view on what might happen - or seems to happen.

"Oracle is going to reshape the MySQL business and channel it in ways that protects its proprietary software business and supports its move into hardware. Evidence of this is already there: MySQL have removed the migration assets from their web site that would support a move from Oracle to MySQL. It was removed in recent weeks to reduce choice for their customers before the deal was approved or closed. Oracle clearly wants to take no risk in cannibalizing their Oracle DBMS business, even though MySQL is a much less capable product.

We also understand that MySQL has already stopped reselling and promoting other products based on MySQL that are competitive with Oracle's database offerings.

The good news is there is a proven alternative to Oracle's database. Ingres has the technology, migration tools, and global partners to support smooth migrations from proprietary databases to the benefits of open source which are experienced every day by thousands of Ingres customers running mission critical applications in 59 countries around the world.

Ingres believes in the superior innovation that comes from the community development model and welcomes a broad range of contributions ranging from location based applications to the leading analytics capabilities.  We are very confident that the developers who created the MySQL community will continue to lead the industry in innovation across a broad range of open source projects."