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Making MySQL pay: A question of core and complements
Jeff Gould has written an excellent piece on the big question arising from Sun's acquisition of MySQL: how will Sun make enough money on the deal to justify the $1 billion valuation? Gould's analysis is generally solid, but he misses a few key points.
First off:
Only time will tell. But in my humble opinion, MySQL's open source business model will make Sun's road to payback a lot steeper than if it had bought a software company with conventional revenues and profits.Ah, the good old days! Just one problem: those days are gone. Pining for an acquisition of the old way of selling and distributing software is like pining for Mayberry: you can want it, but those days are never coming back. VCs aren't investing in proprietary Mayberry anymore. Except from the consolidators of 20th-century software (Oracle, IBM, SAP, Microsoft), customers aren't buying into the false Mayberry that left them destitute of innovation and options.
Open source is the way forward. But that doesn't make it an easy road, as Gould suggests. Here's where his analysis becomes relevant.… Read more
