Microsoft's position on MySQL

While Oracle provides no official information they are planning on improving MySQL and using as a product to compete with Microsoft SQL Server, it is rather obvious from what little information you can glean from public announcements this is a clear business goal.

Microsoft however are publicly seeking a Senior Product Manager, MySQL Compete in the Marketing department. Your goal is nothing technical, it’s all PR to dispel MySQL as a viable product. I quote “you will equip field and partners to win in competitive engagements against MySQL, and you will influence market perception in favor of Microsoft technologies.” Here is the Full job description for those that want an amusing read.

This information came from an Oracle colleague of mine based in Asia.

Microsoft, Yahoo and Open Source

There has been plenty of press this week regarding Microsoft making a bid for Yahoo. This week the Wall Street Journal Article From Uncertain Future To Leading Yahoo Bid has prompted me to the following observations. I quote several points:

The bid, he said on the call, is “the next major milestone in Microsoft’s companywide transformation” to incorporate online services.

as Microsoft pushes the bid and, if successful, tries to meld Yahoo with Microsoft.

Microsoft had been negotiating to buy online ad company DoubleClick Inc. but lost that deal to Google, which paid $3.1 billion. Microsoft in May countered, spending $6 billion on online ad company aQuantive Inc.

While Microsoft should continue investing in its own online services, it needed to speed things up through acquisitions.

Once a company had a critical mass of buyers and sellers on its online-ad system, it could hold sway over much of the industry. In computers, Microsoft achieved that position with its Windows operating system. But on the Internet, Google was quickly taking on that role.


The Alexa Ratings has Yahoo as the number 1 real-estate property, outstripping Google. What’s important to realize that Yahoo along with many top traffic websites not only use Open Source, but their business is run on Open Source. At the database, there is MySQL powering Yahoo, Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube, Fotolog and Flickr for example. Google also uses MySQL within critical components (not the search engine).

One can only hope that if such a bid is successful, much like the Sun acquisition of MySQL , that strong components of the Open Source ideal infects the much larger host.

I was thinking of taking this popular Tux & Microsoft Office image and badging Tux with a Yahoo logo, or perhaps he needs to be planting a big neon sign in the center.