as a Sun reseller... can i be the first to say "WHOOP! WHOOP!"

Larry you have saved us from IBM and assorted other "fates worse than death"...

:-)

MySQL...?

"Oracle.... aspire to help customers simplify the development, deployment and operation of high value business systems, from applications all the way to datacenters...." So why did they buy Sun then? :D

Can't wait for the firesale of all the hardware bizz, it will be interesting to see who steps up to bid for any of it (CISCO?)!

... on how big Schwartz's golden parachute will be, although given that he's systematically destroyed Sun he probably deserves to be keelhauled behind one of Ellison's yachts.

Sad to see it end like this - I don't work for Sun but know a fair few people who do, at least for now. All the best to the lot of them.

Tombstone - an ignominious end to a once-fine company.

So does this mean the end of MySQL as we know it?

We are doomed :-(

..as a soon-to-be Orasun/Sunacle/Suckle employee I'm happy with this outcome...

With IBM there was too much overlap in hardware/services etc. With Oracle we seem to have a much better fit and hopefully not shed too many jobs.!

Anyone got a "Oracle for Dummies" I can borrow?

Didn't see that one coming...

Mines the one with "Postgres for dummies" in the back pocket. Gotta move with the times.

Expect a lot of things to die with this deal. Oracle has no patience for low margin hardware unless it sells lots of software licenses.

HP is the real loser as they are the only ones without a software stack which is were the real profit is. (but they still have ink)

McNealy's life work is for nothing buy Larry's chopping block.

"Ellison and McNealy were two of the prime movers behind the anti-Wintel coaliton which pushed the Network Computer. This was launched with much hoopla back in 1995. It's nice to know they've finally got there" :-)

With such a protracted gestation, can the Future expect One Mother of a System Internet Networking as AIdDynamIQ Computer with Virtual Operating Systems and Attendant and Attentive Drivers? .

Big Blue bites the Dust ..... and is extraordinarily rendered an Also Ran?

Bravo..... and to the Victor the Spoils.

"Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system - applications to disk - where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves. Our customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up."

I wonder how this works with the "HP is much faster running Oracle" campaign HP have been running on the back of mags like the Economist.

Oracle have been struggling to integrate their last bunch of purchases with all that framework stuff and Oracle Forms HTML nasty hybrid stuff for ever. But that could also be something to do with firing all the competent old hands a couple of years ago.

Please, can we kill Oracle Forms now? But to replace it with Java ... gah.

Shame really, JIS had vision for the future of IT but not Sun's place in it. With zero business accumen he was doomed to fail and take Sun with him...

Sun IP is significant and Oracle will do what they have done in almost every acquisition slash and burn...the end of an era.

PLEASE will someone with some sense take the business private, get rid of my little pony and focus on the core strengths of this innovation powerhouse before it's too late?

Overpriced database on overpriced hardware.

Poor old MySQL - I feel a Visual Foxpro coming on.

bye bye MySQL :-(

"All your database are belong to us!"

MySQL - can't see that project progeessing.

Oracle in charge of Java, sweet suffering Jehoshaphat I don't like that

Still at least "unbreakable linux" will die a death, alongside the souls of once happy Sun employees.

...to see what the future brings. I don't think it makes any sense for Oracle to buy the company and then flog off the hardware because - seriously - what's left at Sun when you take away the hardware?

If they follow up on the position of having a true end-to-end solution, I think that would be very powerful indeed.

Any odds on IBM buying HP now they've missed out on Sun?

>> "be accretive to Oracle's earnings" - does this mean the same as "increase"?

Seems to, pretty much. Looks like we both learnt a new word today.

From http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/accretive:

ac⋅cre⋅tion   /əˈkriʃən/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [uh-kree-shuhn] Show IPA

–noun 1. an increase by natural growth or by gradual external addition; growth in size or extent.

If only MySQL was licensed under the GPL to protect us from the effects of such ownership changes...

There goes the neighborhood - ZFS, MySQL, Solaris and VirtualBox in the hands of a company every bit as nasty and proprietary as M$ or Apple if not more so? A sad day indeed :-/

Roger Heathcote.

Get your chequebooks ready...

Looks like going forward the free Oracle / MYSQL versions will only contain a subset of functionalities and or be limited in capability.

If you cant beat em buy em. (aquire, adopt, extend being ideas that are clearly lost on the numpties at the top of the big media foodchain.

And who will give odds on IBM buying PostgreSQL?

As for Sun Java frankly i couldn't care less - Its always been ironic that the best Oracle IDE (TOAD) and the power user shell SQLPlus are both written in C++.

1) Push Linux big time on Oracle's "own" hardware X86 kit

2) Complete domination of the Solaris platform from web app, down through the DB to the O/S and right to the hardware

3) Push mySQL to the side ( out of sight out of mind )

4) Sack Schwartz!

5) Buy a bigger yacht to celebrate!!!

6) Grudgingly pay shareholders something for their trouble....

Sod MySQL, what will happen to OpenSolaris now, with Oracle being so big on Linux and pushing their own copy of RHEL?

@Simon, you don't keel-haul "behind" a boat, you do it under the boat. Haul the condemned slowly along the boat's keel.

Long Live Unbreakable Solaris...

@Matt prepare to migrate your Linux boxes to Solaris :-).

Pure speculation.

Do we think Oracle have already run their software on the machines Sun has up in the lab? Oracle DB on Rock with SSD Tier 0 storage via ZFS might be rather interesting after all. Obviously the deal is about far more than Rock, but an interesting thought.

I can already feel my prices rising. I'm sure there is some marketing idiot at Oracle who is now thinking of new, per-core, ways of charging us for products we used to get for free or low cost.

MySQL, it was nice working with ya. The writing should have been on the wall when MySQL top execs left, but now, why in the world would Oracle continue with MySQL? Unless they bastardize MySQL into some kind horrific of feeder/sales channel for full Oracle.

Time to give PostgreSQL a more thorough review. At least we can be assured of continued openness and development (think 3-5+ years)

It seems that Sun and Oracle are a better fit product wise. In regards to MySQL though, Oracle owns Innobase and maybe that is where MySQL will fit in - (InnoSQL, MyDB anyone). If anyone knows more about the relationship between InnoDB and Oracles other database products. Please enlighten us.

As for Paris, she knows as much as anyone about enterprise database solutions.

I work for a Sun X64/SPARC and Solaris/JAVA/Oracle "shop" and my initial thoughts are this is going to be good news for us.