Surprise – Oracle Buys Sun

As we discussed a few weeks ago, IBM was in talks to purchase Sun, but those discusssions fell apart last week.  In an apparent slap to the face of IBM, Oracle has moved in and purchased Sun today.  The total cost of acquisition was $7.4 billion.

Press Release

What does this mean for MySQL?

MySQL and Oracle’s database system may continue to co-exist for a while.  There are definite advantages to Oracle taking over the development, as their database expertise is second to none in the industry.  To me, however, the Oracle platform is geared more toward enterprise uses and not small-scale projects that MySQL fits so well with.  Perhaps MySQL development will continue as the “small to medium solution” and Oracle’s enterprise solution will stay where it is.

At any rate, this is a very interesting development for the web industry.  What are your thoughts?