MySQL in CNN
“MySQL lacks many features big companies want for using it with applications that are central to their business, like manufacturing or finance software from companies like SAP. But it is getting inexorably better thanks to all those helpers bequeathed by its business model. Says open-source expert Stacey Quandt at the Giga Information Group: “As the feature/functionality gap continues to narrow, MySQL will eventually take market share away from Oracle, [IBM’s] DB2, and Microsoft SQL Server at the high end.” Charlie Garry at Meta Group says open-source software is now supplanting costlier proprietary software for well-defined, commoditized tasks. He predicts that the established vendors will fight back with free, stripped-down versions of their own products, but he has no doubt about MySQL’s prospects: “MySQL will penetrate the enterprise similarly to the way SQL Server did, but with much greater speed.” Yahoo’s Zawodny makes a different analogy: “MySQL is to Oracle as Linux is to Windows. It will slowly but steadily creep up the food chain, just like Linux has.”
Mickos is already seeing real headway. “I estimate we command 20 percent of the worldwide installed base of databases,” he says , “but of revenues we only command only .02 percent. So there’s a factor of 1,000.” He laughs. “And we are making money. People ask me ‘What’s wrong-why are you leaving money on the table?’ We say ‘You should ask the other database companies what is wrong with their cost structure.” His confidence may be 1999, but his pragmatism and customer-centric approach are very 2003.”