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As Oracle Becomes Java's Steward, It's Also a Big Player in Mobile Tech

When Oracle announced its intent to acquire Sun Microsystems, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said Java is the single most important software we've ever acquired. Since he made that statement, though, there has been a lot of second-guessing regarding Oracle's true intent with Java. The DevXtra Editor's Blog, for example, suggests that ?as Oracle seeks to get a $1.5 billion contribution to its profits in its first year with Sun, Oracle may start pulling staff and funding from Sun Java projects that don't immediately contribute to the bottom line or at least show promise of contributing in the near future. While that's possible, I'm more inclined to believe that Oracle will extend much of what Sun has done with Java, and one big reason for that is that Java makes Oracle an important player in the fast-growing market for mobile technology.


OStatic Buffer Overflow...

Samsung asks if the i7500 is the Android you have been looking for. The company's Android phone has a touch screen, built-in GPS, WiFi support, a 5-megapixel camera, and 8GB of internal memory.

Report: First Android Netbook to cost $250. The Alpha 680, designed by Guangzhou Skytone Transmission Technologies, is going through final testing now.

Ubuntu-Studio 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope screenshot tour. It's a multimedia-geared derivative of Ubuntu.

Desktop Linux: Why it may have lost its chance. After 18 years, Linux is still struggling to gain a foothold on the business desktop.

The rise and fall of Sun Microsystems. Here's a slideshow on nearly 30 years of Sun history.



Interview: Karen Tegan Padir, MySQL VP, On This Week's MySQL Conference

As news and analysis about the future of MySQL under Oracle made the rounds this week, the annual MySQL Conference and Expo also took place in Silicon Valley. New versions of MySQL arrived and were announced, and we asked Karen Tegan Padir, Sun's VP of MySQL and Software Infrastructure, several questions about where MySQL and open source are headed. While Oracle's plans may be different from Sun's, and the acquisition wasn't up for discussion, Karen shed some light on what's important in the new versions, and how Sun wants to keep MySQL's direction simple.


Monty Widenius, MySQL Founder, Forecasts the MySQL Future

MySQL founder Monty Widenius, who left Sun Microsystems earlier this year, has an interesting blog post up on why he thinks Oracle is acquiring Sun. In it, he also considers several possible scenarios for MySQL going forward, including the possibility that Oracle might kill MySQL, which it has competed with. Monty's opinion on these matters is probably as informed as anyone's, and here are some thoughts on what he says.


Steve Ballmer Says He Doesn't Grok Oracle/Sun, and IBM Reveals its Database Response

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says he doesn't get the point of Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems. After expressing surprise and saying he doesn't understand the deal on Monday, he's now more specific: I have no idea why a software company would buy a hardware company, Reuters reports him saying while speaking to the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt. We don't want to buy any hardware companies.

Isn't it a bit reductionist to call Sun a hardware company? Sun has a huge portfolio of compelling software, not the least of which is MySQL. On that front, IBM is also revealing how it will counter Oracle and MySQL in the database wars.



During a Seismic Week for Open Source, Take a Lesson from Red Hat

This post from ZDNet and this one from Matt Asay provide some good angles on the momentous changes we've seen on the open source front this week. The fallout and immense industry changes that we're likely to see as Oracle digests Sun Microsystems are staggering to consider. As Dana Blankenhorn says, Oracle is going to control three crown jewels of open source in the form of Java, OpenOffice, and MySQL--among the most widely used projects and among those with the largest developer communities outside Linux itself. Meanwhile Matt points out that only Red Hat is thriving as a public, pure open source company, which I would agree with. So what has Red Hat done right?


MySQL Conference Kicks Off, New Versions Announced

This week in Silicon Valley, the MySQL Conference and Expo is underway, and there are already questions appearing about whether the speakers will have to perform last minute tweaks to their addresses in light of yesterday's news that Oracle is acquiring MySQL's parent, Sun Microsystems. I doubt if there will be a whole lot said on that topic, but the conference has some interesting events, and Sun has also just announced MySQL Cluster 7.0 (a carrier grade version of MySQL), and the preview version of MySQL 5.4. Here's what's in the new releases, when they're available, and what's slated for the conference.


Mark Shuttleworth Now Sees Oracle As a Big Open Source Kahuna

Dana Blankenhorn at ZDNet has an interesting post up on comments on the Oracle/Sun acquisition from Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical and Ubuntu Linux. Speaking at a press conference to launch the Ubuntu 9.04 upgrade, Shuttleworth reportedly characterized?the deal as making Oracle the largest open source player. ?I?m sure Oracle has carefully thought through everything it committed [itself] to [and] there will be no reversal of the idea that Java should be widely available and available as open source,? Shuttleworth is quoted as saying. He also characterizes open source as the profound driving force in software today. The acquisition doesn't necessarily mean that Oracle is fully and completely embracing open source, though.


What Might Oracle Do With OpenOffice?

In a post earlier this morning, I wondered why, amidst all the talk of Oracle buying Sun Microsystems, nobody is discussing the impact that it may have on OpenOffice. The OpenOffice open source suite of productivity applications hasn't been the huge success that many predicted it would be early on, but it has gotten better and better, and more compatible with Microsoft's applications. As Oracle becomes the steward of it, there are a lot of interesting scenarios to think about, including possible moves by Oracle to compete more directly with Microsoft Office. Does Oracle have an opportunity here?


Oracle to Buy Sun: Will MySQL Ever Be The Same?

Only weeks after a possible IBM acquisition of Sun Microsystems fizzled, news is out today that Oracle is to buy Sun for $7.4 billion--in the same neighborhood as the price IBM was said to have been looking at. An Oracle acquisition of Sun has substantial implications for Sun, currently one of the largest public open source companies. It promises to put Oracle squarely in the hardware business, but most notably, Oracle will now own MySQL. As Matt Asay notes, Oracle already sought to buy MySQL in 2007 for $850 million, ?which was the third time the company had attempted to acquire it. Is this good news or bad news for MySQL?


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