Oracle’s Takeover of Sun Microsystems May Impact Java, MySQL and other Open Source Apps
Oracle announced that they have finalized their $7 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems. The European Commission gave in to Oracle’s argument that it will continue to support Sun’s Java and MySql and the new merged entity will not constitute a threat of monopoly. Oracle was granted by the EU the final legal permission to take over Sun Microsystems and Sun becomes Larry Ellison’s new toy gun to shoot its fiercest rival, IBM. The mainframe company has been vehemently opposed to Oracle’s takeover of Sun but Big Blue failed to convince the European Commission that Oracle and Sun will disrupt open competition in the lucrative corporate data management business.
Oracle Buys Sun Microsystems for $7B
Oracle has been taking away much business from IBM’s core revenue earners. Oracle has overtaken IBM in the enterprise relational database market. It now holds 49% market share compared to IBM’s modest 27%. Overall, IBM still holds a slight edge on total global corporate DBMS sales. However, it is obvious that IBM is scared that Oracle owning the popular DBMS server Solaris from Sun will give it a big unfair advantage. IBM has been very reliant on its main frame and micro frame servers but companies around the world are quickly switching to less costly Linux and Solaris servers.
I really don’t give a damn about IBM’s woes. I am now very much worried about what will happen to Java and MySQL. Larry Ellison is as greedy as any manic profiteer could be. I am afraid that despite assurances my Sun’s McNealy that Oracle will continue the development of Java and MySQL, I can’t help but be alarmed by Oracle’s reputation for being a money-hungry company. The world of computing has been very much appreciate of Sun’s open source policy for Java and MySQL. They could have made a lot of money from them but they chose to give it away for free. Java is now prevalent online and on mobile phones. PHP and MySQL is also now the world’s most popular platform for websites and web applications.
If and when Larry Ellison’s suffers a tantrum and decides to take out Java and MySQL out of free public access, the world will suffer a tidal wave of disasters. Millions of web and mobile apps developers will be forced to pay royalties to Larry Ellison and company. Websites running on PHP/MySQL will go offline unless they pay Oracle! I would have preferred if Google purchased Sun instead of Oracle. At least we know how Google likes giving away free applications from Picasa to Android OS.
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