MySQL AB was a
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
software company
A software company is a company whose primary products are various forms of software, software technology, distribution, and software product development. They make up the software industry.
Types
There are a number of different types of soft ...
founded in 1995. It was acquired by
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...
in 2008, Sun was in turn acquired by
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...
in 2010. MySQL AB is the creator of
MySQL
MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database o ...
, a
relational database management system
A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relatio ...
, as well as related products such as
MySQL Cluster
MySQL Cluster is a technology providing shared-nothing clustering and auto-sharding for the MySQL database management system. It is designed to provide high availability and high throughput with low latency, while allowing for near linear sca ...
. The company was dually headquartered in
Uppsala
Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inha ...
,
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
, and
Cupertino
Cupertino ( ) is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 57,8 ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
, with offices in other countries (
France (Paris),
Germany (Munich),
Ireland (Dublin),
Italy (Milan), and
Japan (Tokyo)).
MySQL
AB had 400 employees in 25 countries,
and
Open-source model
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
companies. Around 70% of the employees were
remote workers.
Together with
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
,
Apache
The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño an ...
, and
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group. ...
, the MySQL Server forms one of the building blocks of the
LAMP technology stack. The company claimed over 5 million MySQL installations and over 10 million product downloads in 2004.
Revenue
MySQL AB representatives are commonly cited as champions of what they claim to be a "second generation" of open source companies. The revenues of both first and second generation open source companies usually derive from selling support, consulting services, and training for their products. What generally distinguishes this "second generation" of companies, such as MySQL AB and
Trolltech
The Qt Company (pronounced "cute"; formerly Trolltech and Quasar Technologies) is a software company based in Espoo, Finland. It oversees the development of its Qt application framework within the Qt Project. It was formed following the acqui ...
, from earlier "open source"
business model
A business model describes how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value,''Business Model Generation'', Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, and 470 practitioners from 45 countries, self-published, 2010 in economic, social, ...
s is
dual licensing
Multi-licensing is the practice of distributing software under two or more different sets of terms and conditions. This may mean multiple different software licenses or sets of licenses. Prefixes may be used to indicate the number of licenses ...
— the software is supplied under an open source license, but traditional software licences are also sold by the company that owns the software. As an example, MySQL AB makes MySQL available under the
GPL
The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general u ...
at no charge, but sells it under other more traditional licenses to clients who do not find the GPL to be ideal for their purposes, such as inclusion of MySQL AB technology in a closed source product.
Other sources of revenue for MySQL AB were providing support and consulting, as well as training and certification for MySQL Server. Together with some additional services, MySQL also provided a subscription-based product called
MySQL Enterprise
MySQL Enterprise is a subscription-based service produced by Oracle Corporation and targeted toward the business, commercial market. Oracle's official support, training and certification focus on MySQL Enterprise.
MySQL Enterprise contains
* MyS ...
, which is also resold by other companies such as
Dell
Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies.
Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
,
HP, and
Novell
Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare.
Under the lead ...
.
History
* 1995 – Company founded by
Michael Widenius
Ulf Michael Widenius (often called Monty; born 3 March 1962, in Helsinki, Finland) is the main author of the original version of the open source MySQL database, a founding member of the MySQL AB company and CTO of the MariaDB Corporation AB. ...
,
David Axmark
David Axmark, born 28 May 1962 in Sweden, is one of the founders of MySQL AB and a developer of the free database server, MySQL. He has been involved with MySQL development from its beginning along with the fellow co-founder Michael Widenius. He ...
, and Allan Larsson
* 2001 –
Mårten Mickos
Mårten Gustaf Mickos (born November 6, 1962 in Espoo, Finland) is a technology executive based in San Francisco. He is the current CEO of HackerOne, a security vulnerability coordination and bug bounty platform.
Mickos was chief executive off ...
elected CEO
* 2001 – First round financing by Scandinavian
venture capitalists
Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...
* 2003 – Second round financing by a group of investors headed by
Benchmark Capital
Benchmark is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco that provides seed money to startups.
History
The firm's most successful investment was a 1997 investment of $6.7 million in eBay for 22.1% of the company. In 2011, it invested $12 mil ...
* 2003 – Partnership agreement concluded with
SAP SE
Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant.
Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a sepa ...
, acquiring the full commercial rights to
MaxDB
MaxDB is an ANSI SQL-92 (entry level) compliant relational database management system ( RDBMS) from SAP AG, which was also delivered by MySQL AB from 2003 to 2007. MaxDB is targeted for large SAP environments e.g. mySAP Business Suite, and othe ...
* 2003 – Acquired Alzato, a subsidiary of
Ericsson
(lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informa ...
* In February 2005 the MySQL Network subscription service was announced (later called MySQL Enterprise).
A third round of about $18.5 million financing led by
Institutional Venture Partners, including
Intel Capital
Intel Capital is a division of Intel Corporation, set up to manage corporate venture capital, global investment, mergers and acquisitions. Intel Capital makes equity investments in a range of technology startups and companies offering hardware, s ...
,
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide.
Red Hat has become ass ...
, SAP Ventures, and others was disclosed in February 2006.
On 16 January 2008, MySQL AB announced that it had agreed to be acquired by
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...
for approximately
$1
billion
Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions:
*1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is its only current meaning in English.
* 1,000,000,000,000, i. ...
.
The acquisition completed on 26 February 2008.
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...
then acquired Sun in 2010.
References
External links
Company home pagePlanetMySQL
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mysql Ab
Software companies of Sweden
Free software companies
Sun Microsystems acquisitions
Companies based in Uppsala County
Uppsala
Software companies established in 1995
1995 establishments in Sweden
2008 mergers and acquisitions