Jonathan Schwartz reveals why Sun Microsystems acquired MySQL

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”.