Comments on what de rass?: Sun + Oracle and Misguided EU Policy

Khyron, I think the question on competition is no...

2010-01-04T21:27:57.562-05:00

Khyron,

I think the question on competition is not simple and has no single answer. There also should be considered market data and numbers I have no access to.

On the one hand, the merge will definitely decrease competition on
MySQL vs Oracle battle. I personally
know many customers who switched from Oracle to MySQL. Also one of marketing direction MySQL was following is to Oracle->MySQL migration. Now this direction is closed afaik.

On the other hand it may actually even heat up market. Some big players will need to catch up Oracle with their dual system ( MySQL for entry-level users, Oracle for big customers) and come up with something similar. So MS and IBM probably will make steps to limit Oracle's market share in Web.

Yeah, I don't see Oracle making MySQL as compe...

2009-12-31T23:18:33.241-05:00

Yeah, I don't see Oracle making MySQL as competitive with it's primary software product(s) as you would like. They'll position it as the "gateway drug" for 11g/Exadata, which makes sense to a degree. It's understandable, in an "Innovator's Dilemma" sort of way.

I think the ultimate point of the blog post remains unchanged. There's a plethora of options for SQL databases, commercial and open source. So I think the EU argument is weak, at best.

My feeling is that the Competition Commission has a silent directive to keep a lid on the expansion of American companies. I also feel that the CC and EU are trying to "defend" a European company. It seems like they are trying to make a political statement rather than preventing this merger for real competition reasons. Also, let's consider the 2nd order effect of reducing competition in the server market -- Unix, Linux and Windows -- if Sun goes out of business. This is a much more likely outcome if Oracle's acquisition of Sun fails.

How do you feel about the overall argument by the EU? Do you think there is limited choice in the database market? Do you (personally) think Oracle's purchase of Sun will limit choice? Yes, it may threaten MySQL's future, but the whole point of this blog post was that there were plenty of other competitive offerings if MySQL disappeared. The EU seems to be willfully overlooking these competitive offerings, again, in my opinion, for political reasons.

Khyron, I do not know if new project will reach p...

2009-12-31T18:52:12.217-05:00

Khyron,

I do not know if new project will reach popularity of PostgreSQL.

I think to get significant traction of users, the project should have next characteristics:

- Handle hundreds of GBs and provide
easy management tools for that amount of data
- Scale both SMP and MMP ways
- Have integrated caching solution
- Stable and flexible replication
- Detailed performance profiling tools
- Fast Backup and Recovery
- Have good pluginable architecture
- Actively accept third-party contributions

(Do I ask too much ? )

I think the project that comes with mentioned solutions will get
significant popularity.

It may be PostgreSQL, FireBird, MySQL / MySQL-fork, etc..

Actually Drizzle has goals similar to what I listed, but I am not sure
how Drizzle is financially stable to continue many-years development.

Also I do not believe that Oracle
will be interested to have MySQL with all these features ( meaning that MySQL will lose popularity and will lose to new project)

It also can be one of key-value project you mentioned in post.
One or couple of them will get more mature than right now and may win the race.

Basically we live in interesting time :)

Happy New Year!

Vadim, Do you think a new project could ever repl...

2009-12-31T02:26:28.132-05:00

Vadim,

Do you think a new project could ever replicate the success of PostgreSQL? Firebird will be somewhat interesting to watch going forward, in this regard. Can the community sustain a SQL database project without the levels of investment that you describe?

For something as visible as MySQL, I tend to think it can. I think supporters and sponsors will arise (if they don't already exist) because MySQL has brand equity, installed base, and there is such a wide body of institutionalized knowledge about it. While some of these might change in a fork -- such as loss of brand value due to a name change -- the project would not be starting from zero. It would also get lots of attention from the media, bloggers, geeks, etc. Percona may not be involved in it, but you and Peter would likely discuss this transition in various forums. (Your blog, for instance?)

Otherwise, based on what you've said, if MySQL were led to fork, then it's a dead product. Maybe a dead man walking, because the community may not get the message until much later. However, even if MySQL died, I think there are enough solutions available -- both open source and commercial -- that the crux of the EU and EC policy would still be incorrect.

MySQL is not the only SQL database available now, and even in Oracle's hands, how can it be said that too much power is consolidated with them? IBM has Red Brick, Informix and DB2. (Does Red Brick still exist?) No one is claiming that they have a lock on the database market.

Cheers!

Khyron, I think that is annual recurring cost, ho...

2009-12-30T15:06:55.395-05:00

Khyron,

I think that is annual recurring cost, however I did not do full calculation, just rough sum up.

Let's assume we need 10 good full-time developers with $100K/year salary and comparable amount of managers, administrative and support team ( and do not forget bug- and documentation team). MySQL in good old times had 40 full-time engineers.

That easily gives us couple millions of $ per year.

I think it is very hard to do without attraction of VC capital.

With VC investments, yes, it is quite possible, but not clear if
VCs are interested in.

Vadim, I get that. Responding to the point about ...

2009-12-30T14:03:47.080-05:00

Vadim,

I get that. Responding to the point about the economics of a fork, I would ask if that 5 - 10M (EUR or USD) is really as big of a barrier as it appears?

What occurs to me is that there will be upfront (CapEx) and ongoing (OpEx) costs. However, will that 5M in cost come all upfront, or spread out over time? If it is all upfront, then yes, I can see that as a significant barrier. However, if we're spreading most of that out over time, then the wall gets lowered. Is it still significant? Of course. I doubt just anyone would take that on, but there are organizations, even small ones such as Percona, that could and would. At least, that's my thinking. Many of them will have revenue from other sources - consulting, support, other projects - so those costs may not be as imposing in the long run.

At least, that's my thinking. Did I miss anything?

Hello, You made quite competitive analysis of cur...

2009-12-30T13:37:50.359-05:00

Hello,

You made quite competitive analysis of current MySQL state and forks.

As primary developer of XtraDB let me comment. XtraDB was started due to
lack of significant progress in InnoDB development during last 4 years. InnoDB got outdated and not being able to work on modern hardware. Increased activity in InnoDB development I correspond with fact that XtraDB was getting more and more acceptance between advanced technical users.

I expect that same happens with MySQL. You are correct that anybody can fork MySQL, however there is significant economical entry barrier, in Monty's analysis
he says it requires 5-10 mil ($, Euro) per year to have the competitive fork.

To finalize, if there will be lack of development in next 3 years and if someone will want to fork it, most likely it will be dead RDBMS at that time.

To saying that let me highlight that Percona is neither not against nor for deal. We accept it as business and will adjust our strategy in depends on outcome.

Vadim Tkachenko,
CTO, Percona