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Topic: Software

Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

Summary: Talent is scarce, and strategic talent is scarcer in open source than hens' teeth. Mickos has proven he has it, plus a strong dose of realism.

Dana Blankenhorn

By Dana Blankenhorn for Linux and Open Source |

When mySQL co-founders Monty Widenius and Marten Mickos forked, it was Monty who made the early headlines with his opposition to the Oracle acquisition of Sun.

(Mickos is shown here in happier times, celebrating mySQL's purchase of Sun with Jonathan Schwartz. Mickos is on the left, looking like the executive on casual Friday, while Schwartz is the kid who just came off a tennis court.)

Of the two it was Mickos who got the Wall Street cred, probably because he wanted it. Getting someone to pay $1 billion for an open source project, as Sun did for mySQL, will make anyone take notice. He quickly took a perch as entrepreneur in residence at Benchmark Capital.

So it's no surprise he landed at one of Benchmark's investments. He has been recruited to be the new CEO of Eucalyptus Systems, the cloud software project that emerged from UC Santa Barbara.

Mickos shoved aside Woody Rollins as CEO. Rollins didn't jump ship, however. He took the post of chief financial officer.

None of this should surprise anyone. Talent is scarce, and strategic talent is scarcer in open source than hens' teeth. Mickos has proven he has it, plus a strong dose of realism. His willingness to push back against Widenius' objections to the Sun-Oracle deal did him no harm on Sand Hill Road.

Now let's see what he's got.

Topics: Software, Data Centers, Data Management, Enterprise Software, Open Source, Oracle

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  • Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune

    Dana,
    Is this one of your "deep insight" posts?

    That said, based on the fact that the only talent you site for Mr Mickos as being "stand out" is his ability to (?): quash, quell and marginalize the protestations and objections by the technical architect and lead developer of a revolutionary product over sale of that product and the for-hire infrastructure and ecosystem of that product's development to an ill-suited suitor.

    I would say, as many of my peers would, that the sale of MySQL over many valid and reasonable objections as voiced by Widenius, and MANY others, signaled the end of MySQL's halcion days, care to disagree? Anyone? Voodoo...? Voodoo...? Anyone? Voodoo Economics.

    Therefore, the talent you must be citing is Mickos' ability to simultaneously line his own pockets, the pockets of investors, and the "Sand Hill" gang, along with the future pockets of the acquiring companie's CEO and executive core, while also damning a revolutionary product to future obscurity, marketplace abuse, and mediocrity.

    Nothing wrong with lining pockets, but via destruction of the item of value is prettu repulsive.

    Humm, that's not a talent I would be interested in hiring or putting in charge of my company, but hey, I don't work on Sand Hill road, nor do I work any where near Winter Street in Waltham MA, nor g-d forbid for any agency or even loosely affiliated company of Oracle (although I do love several of the products whose companies they've purchased and havent yet made entirely cost prohibitive).

    Be nice if you could do a post about the state of MySQL and it's competitors and how you think Mickos and "The Power of the Schwartz" have done when they are benchmarked against criteria like product innovation and improvement "stewardship" in the wake of recent history rather than using the criteria of how much money they made themselves and their Sand Hill buddies.

    Give it a shot, I don't think you'll get in too much trouble or lose any precious life-blood access telling the truth - after all, you don't work on Sand Hill Rd or in Waltham MA either.

    Regards,
    adam cassel

    p.s. Keep up the entertaining and engaging campaign!! And thanks Dana, truly!
    adam cassel
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

      Oracle threw its own punches at Red Hat and Microsoft today by detailing expanding integration of its MySQL with Windows and Oracle?s heftier databases in the 2011-12 timeframe.
      Linux Love
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

        In a webcast today, executives noted the expanded integration of the recently released MySQL 5.5 with Windows and outlined future plans for tighter integration with Windows installation and authentication systems as well as improved support for the Entity framework and tighter integration between the MySQL editor and Visual Studio GUI.
        Linux Love
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      • RE: Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

        Windows ? not Linux ? is the No 1. MySQL platform, several execs said, noting that enterprises can
        Linux Love
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      • RE: Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

        leverage the LAMP [Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP/Perl] stack for web applications across any application
        Linux Love
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      • RE: Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

        platform ? but Oracle chose to highlight Windows on this day.
        Linux Love
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

        Oracle execs, for example, pointed out that the performance of MySQL on Windows is now on par
        Linux Love
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      • RE: Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

        with MySQL on Linux. That can?t be good news for the Red Hat clan.
        Linux Love
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      • RE: Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

        Windows is and will continue to be No. 1 for developers and deployment so we want to stay focused
        Linux Love
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      • RE: Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

        and make sure performance and scalability is top notch,? said Tomas Ulin, MySQL vice president of
        Linux Love
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      • RE: Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

        engineering at Oracle, noting that both capabilities were improved in MySQL 5.5 but faster
        Linux Love
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      • RE: Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

        read/writes are planned over the next 12 to 18 months.
        Linux Love
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      • RE: Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

        But even as it extolled Windows as an ideal platform for MySQL, and identified plans to increase
        Linux Love
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      • RE: Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

        integration between the two, Oracle also simultaneously took aim at Microsoft?s SQL Server and Access<a href="http://www.storabokbytardagenimariefred.com/"><font color="light&amp;height"> story</font></a> is something that <a href="http://www.chicago-water-damage.info/"><font color="light&amp;height">water</font></a> can demage any <a href="http://www.esn-nederland.org/"><font color="light&amp;height">nederland</font></a> people from around <a href="http://www.gburgtv.com/"><font color="light&amp;height">best TV</font></a> that you can <a href="http://www.newyork-auto.net/"><font color="light&amp;height">newyork</font></a> is the databases.
        Linux Love
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      • RE: Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

        Oracles homegrown Connector/Net 6.3 includes support for Visual Studio 2010 but the next version Connector/Net 6.4 will add the aforementioned capabilities to make integration with Microsofts systems and tools seamless to end customers, Ulin said.<br><br>Oracle will also continue working on its Golden Gate technology, which will make it easier for users to exchange data quickly between MySQL and Oracles higher-end databases. Oracle cited Ticketmaster as a customer that switched out its SQl Server databases for MySQL for lighter front end tasks, and kept its existing Oracle back end databases for<a href="http://ipadbagblog.com/"><font color="light&height"> ipad bag blog</font></a> of best <a href="http://www.sutudeg.org/"><font color="light&height">sutudeg community</font></a> the modern <a href="http://wposfv.com/"><font color="light&amp;height">education news</font></a> and country and fulfillment.
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  • RE: Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

    Dana,
    didn't you notice that your headline gets Marten's name
    wrong? Nice job.

    --Zack
    ZUrlocker
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

      @ZUrlocker Humm, that's not a talent I would be interested in hiring or putting in charge of my company, but hey, I don't work on Sand Hill road, nor do I work any where near Winter Street in Waltham MA, nor g-d forbid for<font color="light&amp;height"></font></a><a href="http://www.revivalymaske.com/"><font color="light&amp;height">pembe maske</font></a> <font color="light&amp;height"></font></a><a href="http://www.energybalancebileklik.com/"><font color="light&amp;height">energy balance</font></a> <font color="light&amp;height"></font></a><a href="http://www.oynaoyunu.com/"><font color="light&amp;height">oyna oyunu</font></a> <font color="light&amp;height"></font></a><a href="http://www.moliva.web.tr/"><font color="light&amp;height">moliva</font></a> <font color="light&amp;height"></font></a><a href="http://www.orjinkrem.net/"><font color="light&amp;height">orjin krem</font></a> <font color="light&amp;height"></font></a><a href="http://www.tutunesun.web.tr/"><font color="light&amp;height">tutune son</font></a><font color="light&amp;height"></font></a><a href="http://www.nanomatik.gen.tr/"><font color="light&amp;height">nanomatik</font></a> <font color="light&amp;height"></font></a><a href="http://www.complex41.net/"><font color="light&amp;height">complex 41</font></a> <font color="light&amp;height"></font></a><a href="http://www.fx15new.com/"><font color="light&amp;height">new fx15</font></a> any agency or even loosely affiliated company of Oracle (although I do love several of the products whose companies they've purchased and havent yet made entirely cost prohibitive).<br><br>Be nice if you could do a post about the state of MySQL and it's competitors and how you think Mickos and "The Power of the Schwartz" have done when they are benchmarked against criteria like product innovation and improvement "stewardship" in the wake of recent history rather than using the criteria of how much money they made themselves and their Sand Hill buddies.
      gaberdiye03
      Reply Vote

  • Message has been deleted.

    efsane
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  • Message has been deleted.

    zakkiromi
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  • RE: Can Mickens make Eucalyptus a fortune?

    Talent is scarce, and strategic talent is scarcer in open source than hens teeth. Mickos has proven he has it, plus a strong dose of realism.<a href="http://ipadbagblog.com/"><font color="white"> k</font></a><a href="http://www.sutudeg.org/"><font color="white"> l</font></a><a href="http://www.short-domain-names.com/"><font color="white"> m</font></a>
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