Database giant Oracle announced Monday that it will buy Sun Microsystems for $9.50 per share—roughly $7.4 billion. The two companies reached an agreement after an unsuccessful bid by IBM fell short at $9.40 per share. Oracle has significantly expanded its reach over the past decade through a series of major acquisitions which include PeopleSoft, Hyperion, Siebel, and BEA. The addition of Sun to Oracle's roster will have far-reaching implications and a profound impact on the technology industry.
One area where the effects could be strongly felt is in the open source software community. Among Sun's most prized assets are some large-scale open source software projects that could see some major changes under their new ownership.
The acquisition raises serious questions about the future of MySQL, a popular open source database system that Sun acquired last year. It's not clear if Oracle will see any incentive to continuing development of an open source alternative to its core database offerings. There are several factors, however, that would make it difficult for Oracle to kill off MySQL—and it could be profitable to continue investing in the system's advancement.
Labels: mysql, oracle, sun