Written on 10th October 2008
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David Petherick, Contributing Editor, United Kingdom
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Written on 26th September 2008
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David Petherick, Contributing Editor, United Kingdom
UK startup Tactile CRM were announced today as the winners of Sun Microsystems competition for UK startups to win an exhibition package worth £2500 for The Future of Web Apps Expo which hits London on October 8-10.
Sun, promoting their excellent free Startup Essentials programme, gave Tactile a stand in the Expo Space – Start Up Community, a delegate pass, an expo pass and a listing on the FOWA site. Not content with this generosity, they also awarded a runner-up prize to ‘Shopping without searching’ startup Veedow, who win space on the Sun Lounge to demo their new version to be launched at Future of Web Apps. (Veedow are hiring, by the way.)
Next week, Sun are running a competition to win full conference tickets worth £495 to Future of Web Apps, and also are offering startups who join Startup Essentials, and use the ref code (sssch) FOWA08DSC, a code for 15% off FOWA Conference passes and free EXPO pass tickets, so keep an eye on their blog.
The line-up at FOWA’08 includes Jason Calcanis, Kevin Rose, Kathy Sierra, Tim Bray, Blaine Cook and David Recordon, and FOWA Expo is a great opportunity to see what’s new, and what’s going to be next in the web. Our friends from Diggnation, who presented their show live from the Next Web Conference 2008 in Amsterdam back in April will also be presenting a live Diggnation show from FOWA – always an event to look forward to.
Written on 17th June 2008
2 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz has just talked about a new project called Solaris Registration Map. It’s an early access Google Maps mash-up of Solaris 10 and Open Solaris instances that activated Sun Connection to receive automatic software updates. Schwartz told the Supernova attendees that the mash-up informed them where their customers hang out.
When zoomed out, the results aren’t that surprising. The areas with a high density of Sun sign-ups are Europe, the urban areas of the U.S. and Asia, and the East coast of Australia. But when you’re zooming in, you can tell exactly where the Sun users are. Here are the Sun fan boys from London for example:
So as you can tell by the title of this post, Schwartz has also revealed why they’ve acquired MySQL. When I interviewed MySQL CEO Marten Mickos right after the acquisition last January, he told me that “Sun didn’t have a database and we knew we could fit that role perfectly”. So that’s one reason. Schwartz added another one this afternoon: “Because MySQL adds 100,000 dots to the map a day”.
Written on 22nd January 2008
1 COMMENT
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Last week we reported that Sun Microsystems will acquire MySQL - the open-source database system that fuels a lot of sites – for 1 billion dollars. CEO of Sun Jonathan Schwartz wrote an insightful post on how the deal took place and why they were interested in the database system giant. Turns out that MySQL’s CEO Marten Mickos wasn’t interested for a long while:
For nearly five years, I’ve been getting together for dinner with Marten Mickos, MySQL’s CEO, catching up on the industry, chatting about trends and business models, and just as the dessert was about to be served… I’d say, “geez, we have so much in common, Marten, we see the world so similarly, what would you think about becoming a part of Sun?” At which point Marten would say he was flattered and honored, pour some milk into his coffee, stir, and start talking about Finland.
So why did MySQL decided that they DID want to think about an acquisition? We asked Marten Mickos himself:
“There were a number of reasons. But firstly, we were not looking for an acquiror – we were going full steam towards an IPO. What made us stop and think and discuss with Sun initially was that they have a brilliant CEO whom we respect highly and who is changing the strategy of the company. Under Jonathan’s leadership, Sun has opensourced more products than any other company. They also have started to partner with companies that traditionally were seen as their competitors. This is such a fresh – and winning – approach that it caught our attention.”
So the five years dinners and the good talks payed off. What else, next to the strategy of Schwartz, made MySQL decide to shake hands on it?
“Well, beyond that, there was a long list of benefits. Sun is focused on innovation and technology, and so are we. Sun targets the global web economy as their market, and so do we. And there are more reasons. Importantly Sun didn’t have a database and we knew we could fit that role perfectly. And to our delight, their corporate culture matches well with ours.”
Alright, that’s all made clear: the deal is a gift from heaven for both companies. Yet, what will it mean for the users of MySQL?
“MySQL will have the same roadmap and strategy, but faster ramp. We have a clear plan for 2008 which we will continue to follow as before. But over time, there will be product improvements that stem from our cooperation with the various product and technology labs of Sun. There will be a much bigger sales force selling MySQL. There will be a more complete support network. And so on.”
I think I can easily state that MySQL and Sun is already THE corporate love story of 2008. And better yet, with a dowry of 1 billion dollars. Marten and his team must have had a great party, right?
“Funnily, not much yet. I think we will celebrate more once the deal finally closes in a month or two.The deal got done on a Tuesday and on Wednesday our all-company meeting started, so we were all very busy and we continue to be so. We did get together in my hotel room and opened a bottle of champagne on the eve of the announcement. But we actually drank more beer, and more specifically Heineken. This was because our secret code name for Sun Microsystems during the negotiation was ‘Heineken’.”
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