Sidebar: Vendors Make MySQL Deals

Computerworld - Executives at MySQL AB might be running out of ink in their pens from all the agreements they've signed with major industry players for the open-source database.
This summer, the company signed a deal to ship MySQL 4.0 with Novell Inc.'s NetWare 6.5. Each version of NetWare comes with a full commercial license of the database, so users need not worry about the issues surrounding open-source General Public License agreements .
In the spring, SAP AG selected MySQL to completely revise the database shipped with every copy of the SAP ERP application suite
According to Rudolf Munz, senior vice president for development platforms at SAP, the two companies will jointly develop an open-source database to replace SAP's existing one.
"We have a simple, strategic goal," he says. "Infrastructure, like databases, should be as inexpensive as possible so users have the budget to buy as many SAP applications as possible. Infrastructure has no value for customers. Only applications do." The new database will be called maxDB and be available in the next two to three years.
Also, MySQL and Redmond, Wash.-based start-up Pogo Linux Inc. agreed to work together to develop the first MySQL database appliance. And Sun Microsystems Inc. ships MySQL as standard with its Sun ONE Active Server Pages product and as the only database option for its Sun Fire servers.
According to MySQL President Marteen Mikos, who moved to California this year to handle the increased business in the U.S. and to be closer to investors who poured nearly $20 million into the company this summer, "2003 has been a good year. Next year, I hope, will be better."

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