Planet Lowyat

According to CNET and Yahoo, Sun Microsystems Inc. plans to buy open-source software maker MySQL AB for $1 billion.

Official press release from SUN can be found here and MySQL blog can be found here.

Sun, in a separate announcement before the market opened, said its second quarter revenue would narrowly exceed Wall Street estimates. It also said profit would fall at the high end of analysts’ expectations. The company revealed its preliminary results ahead of schedule.

Santa Clara-based Sun is paying $800 million in cash and assuming $200 million in options to acquire MySQL. The Swedish company makes open-source database software used by companies such as online search leader Google Inc., popular Internet hangout Facebook Inc. and Finnish phone maker Nokia Corp.

Sun said the deal will help spread MySQL’s software to large corporations, which have been the biggest customers of Sun’s servers and software, and boost its distribution through Sun’s relationships with other server makers such as IBM Corp. and Dell Inc.

Sun has tied its fortunes to open-source software. It believes it can sell more server computers and ring up higher maintenance fees by also offering software whose source code is publicly available for free.

MySQL competes with non-open-source offerings from Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp., which dominate database software for traditional businesses.

However, MySQL is the rapidly growing market leader in open-source database software, particularly among Web-based companies, where it commands about 80 percent of the global market, according to Sun Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz.

MySQL, founded in 1995, is one of the most successful open-source companies. It’s part of the popular combination of open-source development products referred to as LAMP, for Linux, Apache Web server, MySQL and the PHP development language, which is broadly used on the Internet and within companies.

Source: CNET and Yahoo