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Why Oracle bought Sun: 60% of enterprise software vendors rely on Java

You should also consider that MySQL and Open Office are under the Sun umbrella. I don't know how well Oracle's products can be embedded, but MySQL and a lot of Java driven databases sure can. That positions Oracle to target mobile solutions with enterprise level solutions.

Everyone talks about how Java fits into this, but I think that MySQL might be a bigger deal. Sun never made a dime on Java, and the Java was doing their own thing without Sun's involvement anyways. Java has reached a critical mass where Sun is no longer needed. But MySQL is another matter entirely. For non-Windows shops, the DB market is Oracle or MySQL, for the most part. On Windows, SQL Server comes into play as well. By getting their hands on MySQL, Oracle now has a commandeering lead in DB deployments. That's always been their bread and butter. Watch them do to MySQL what Cisco did to Linksys: slowly switch things so that MySQL is thought of as "Oracle light" by enterprise consumers (regardless of what tech is actually under the hood) and a lot of shops that were previously choosing between Oracle and SQL Server will suddenly now consider MySQL to be a possibility too. Just like I now have Linksys branded switches in my server rack.

J.Ja

Yup, I agree with you. We can all see who's getting squished in the middle between the high priced Oracle products and the free MySQL.