Yesterday it was confirmed that Oracle has acquired Sun Microsystems, the people behind Java and the recent owners of the MySQL platform, for $5.6 billion as a cash deal. The deal is currently appending approval from the stockholders of both companies but is likely to move ahead as planned as it will also consume the debt that Sun currently have.
As you know Oracle have their own database system, and Sun who recently acquired MySQL were already a major contributor to the PostgreSQL project. This means that Oracle now own two DBMS's and have stakes in a third. In their statement they state that they will remain dedicated to performance and quality.
The acquisition combines best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems. Oracle plans to engineer and deliver an integrated system—applications to disk—where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves. Customers benefit as their system integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up.
This does make me wonder if they will merge the Oracle and MySQL platforms into one product with different tiers for open source and private/public sector clients. Considering that MySQL is already split into two tiers with a free version and an Enterprise version it does seem likely that a possible combined product would also follow this pattern. After further consideration it seems more likely that for the time being Oracle and MySQL will run side by side with support and further development on one of them being dropped further down the line - suddenly having to support multiple products would increase their overheads so they'll want to cut costs.
The big opportunity for Oracle here is in it acquiring Sun it will now be able to offer full database solutions to it's Enterprise customer base whilst still being able to expand upon it's brand recognition through the distribution of MySQL.
Could it be a purchase they've made to get rid of the competition? Who knows, but whatever the uncertain future is for MySQL and Oracle what remains in further doubt is whether they will continue their contributions to the PostgreSQL development.
