The big news this morning is Sun's one billion dollar acquisition of MySQL AB, the German company behind the popular open-source database of the same name, which also may be one of the most broadly deployed open-source applications of all time.

Already popular among both independent developers and inside corporate IT shops when a fast, easy to deploy and use database is required, particularly as a backend to web-based applications, this move has the potential to explosively grow MySQL's market. As Jonathan Schwartzman of Sun points out, the database is already in use in places in almost every enterprise but at the same time most have been skittish about using it for large-scale or mission critical applications without a significant corporation behind it providing solid global support. Sun's acquisition will provide just that, and with the additional development that will surely be forthcoming with a billion dollar warchest behind it, MySQL may well explode from lightweight status into serious competition with heavyweight's Oracle and SQL Server.

It's less clear that this will result in a corresponding boost in Solaris' market share or Sun's hardware sales. MySQL means Linux to a lot of people, and they are unlikely to switch to Solaris even if they expand their MySQL deployments, for reasons such as those pointed out by Dr Nikolai Bezroukov in his paper "Solaris vs. Linux: Ecosystem-based Approach and Framework for the Comparison in Large Enterprise Environments." Those reasons basically boil down to "inertia" but inertia is not a factor to be judged lightly in the enterprise.