[NTLUG:Discuss] OT - didn't Sun just acquire MySQL

[Robert Pearson]

On 4/20/09, Chris Cox <cjcox at acm.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-04-20 at 11:29 -0500, Neil Aggarwal wrote:
>  > Fred:
>  >
>  > Conspiracy theorists think Oracle
>  > did that to kill MySQL.... It makes
>  > sense to me.
>
>
> :)
>
>  Possible.  Java is very important to Oracle as well.
>  Oracle is definitely one of the companies you CANNOT
>  trust.  They'll say just about ANYTHING to make the
>  acquisition... they may continue to say what you want
>  to hear for a year or so... and THEN....  true
>  colors start to show.
>
>  Not sure if IBM would have been any better though.
>

I agree with the assessment.
The same could and is being said for Wall Street and Financial
Services companies except it is your personal retirement being lost
which I regard as more serious.
Since I don't get to work with either Oracle or IBM products on a
daily basis do their products deliver? I hear all these negative
remarks about Oracle and yet everyone uses it. Is the product that
good or is there no alternative? I grew up on DIY "flat file"
databases, Sybase, Ingres and early Oracle. Times have certainly
changed.
Personal Disclaimer: IMHO Most databases fail to deliver initially.
[rdpcomment: Databases of the future will look nothing like current
ones. It will be "Have browser, will access any ad hoc (unstructured)
data in any transient Information space"]

With regard to IBM my experience was that the initial products are
buggy but the Service and Support delivery is massive and sustained.
If you can stand the wait and pay for the ride all major problems will
be solved. Same experience with Oracle.

>  Shame that Schwartz killed Sun.  It was a VERY
>  hard company to kill too.  Easier than killing
>  of Microsoft in a few years... but still. This
>  is quite a huge thing.
>

I blame Scott McNealy. IMHO He failed to change at the critical points in time.

>  Personally, I think Sun got very tired about 7
>  years ago... I'm pretty sure they all wanted
>  out... they got their wish (probably wished that
>  their sale was for more).
>
>  Everyone talks about how Sun lost 25%, etc.. because
>  of the failed IBM talks... shoot the ONLY reason
>  Sun's stock went up 30% was BECAUSE of the IBM
>  talks... so that's just stupid (stupid analysts).
>  Sun stock dropped MASSIVELY (not a record, but
>  certainly typical of a company making a HUGE
>  mistake) over the past 5 years.
>
>  Bye bye Sun.
>

Gone to be with DEC, CDC, Burroughs, SGI, Convex and a host of others...
I learned computing on Sun platforms...