“What will happen to us now?” That’s the usual question for most employees in any acquired company, and MySQL AB is no exception. And given that less than 10% of MySQL AB is at the integration kickoff here at Sun’s headquarters in Menlo Park, more than 90% are probably also asking “what is that small group of people deciding?”.

Judging from the feedback I’ve got, those questions are of relevance not just for MySQLers, so let me re-state a couple of “old truths” and come with a few observations from MPK. (Do note the lingo — MPK is Sun speak for Menlo Park; I’m trying to learn…).

First thing, it’s “Business as Usual”. We’re just making plans for actions that can follow upon closure. Closure is planned (as announced earlier) in late Q3 or early Q4, where the Sun quarter numbering should be translated to mean late Q1 or early Q2 for the rest of the world.

Second thing, the atmosphere is very positive. Jonathan wants to pull a Hippocrates, doing no harm when integrating MySQL into Sun. And the way Jonathan explains it, not believing it is impossible.

Third thing, the positive atmosphere permeates all meetings. I have yet to meet a Sun employee who doesn’t live and breathe the attitude that Sun wants to do what’s best for the MySQL user community, the MySQL employees or MySQL as a company. That ranges from engineers over lawyers to marketing people, from executives to assistants.

Fourth thing, we have concrete issues to solve. Take IT systems, for instance. While we’ll be very happy to finally get a company calendar and systematic expense reporting, and while we likely won’t mind changing some administrative systems, there are systems that are near and dear to us, and that embody a lot of the value of MySQL. Such as Eventum, the support ticketing system. How shall the tasks solved by Eventum be mapped upon Sun, and Sun’s other systems?

Fifth thing, questions still outnumber answers. In the very beginning right after the acquisition announcement, the number of questions grew sharply. Every answered question uncovered another, still larger set of questions. Now, it’s getting slightly better. While we still have more questions than answers, we’re preparing for the closure (remember, late Q1, early Q2) when plans can turn into actions.

Sixth thing, it really is “Business as Usual”. So while some of us are busy planning the integration, most MySQLers have a real job. Answering customer support requests. Coding MySQL enhancements. Fixing bugs. Out on sales calls. Training MySQL users. Keeping the MySQL administration working. Clearly, we don’t want to disturb that.

So in a few hours, the last day of the integration kickoff will start, we’ll handle yet another set of questions, and the breakout teams will give their debriefing sessions.

For myself, it’s back home when the day is over — flying home to Munich. And next week, it won’t be “business as usual” for me. It will be “holidays as sometimes”, as I’ll be off climbing the Wildspitze (3772 m) on skis with my son.

There have been many articles on the Sun-MySQL merger in the press lately. For those who read German, I recommend Martin Schindler’s article “MySQL will look different” on silicon.de.

This interview describes many aspects of the Sun-MySQL integration in a short and clear way. It does say I’m a VP with MySQL since 2005, though. Make that 2001.

One perhaps not-so-expected attendee at the MySQL-Sun Integration Kickoff is Josh Berkus, of PostgreSQL fame.

Zack Urlocker, Eduardo Pelegri-Llopart and Josh Berkus.

Josh gives valuable feedback within the Community track of the Integration Kickoff. Mind you, Jonathan Schwartz has reiterated Sun’s support for PostgreSQL:

What happens to your commitment to PostgreSQL?

It grows. The day before we announced the acquisition, and within an hour of signing the deal, I put a call into Josh Berkus, who leads our work with Postgres inside of Sun. I wanted to be as clear as I could: this transaction increases our investment in open source, and in open source databases. And increases our commitment to Postgres - and the database industry broadly. The same goes for our work with Apache Derby, and our JavaDB.

Josh says it exactly right on his blog - Sun wants to be the leading provider of datacenters. Not just MySQL datacenters. Exactly.

From Josh Berkus’s blog entry on Sun acquiring MySQL, I’d especially like to quote his item #4:

No, I will not be fighting with the MySQL staff. While the two projects compete for users sometimes, the world of database development is very small and most of us know each other. Some of us are even friends.

Yesterday here at the MySQL-Sun Integration Kickoff, MySQL Co-Founder Michael “Monty” Widenius and I met with Sun’s CTO Greg Papadopoulos. For the beginning of the meeting, also Sun’s CEO Jonathan Schwartz popped in.

And just as when the founders met Sun’s Rich Lang and David Douglas prior to the agreement being announced, this was a very positive meeting. Lots of mutual respect, and lots of mutual interest in listening to what the other party has to say. Relaxed atmosphere, full of anticipation.

The areas touched upon ranged from the right for developers to spend time on other FOSS projects besides MySQL, over the newly released Maria storage engine to possibilities for deep technical integration between MySQL and Sun’s software and hardware.

I could sense a mutual hunger for action, for change, and for making things happen. Feels good!

For a split second, I thought Jonathan said he thought of Sun’s acquisition of MySQL as “hypocritical”. Of course, what he said was “Hippocratical”, in the sense of the old Greek with the oath for doctors: “Do no harm.”

Jonathan appeared in front of the integration team with MySQL and Sun employees here in Menlo Park. What he said was very comfortable to hear for MySQLers old and new:

• Jonathan sees a great strategic fit between MySQL and Sun, and that’s the prime precondition for any good acquisition.
• The strategic fit thinking is seconded by financial analysts and technical observers alike.
• “Honour the community“: Jonathan sees the community of MySQL users as the starting point for all decisions related to the integration.
• “Honour the employees“: Jonathan respects the group of MySQL employees who has taken MySQL to where it is today.
• “No cost synergy“: The deal was not struck to take cost out, but to enable new opportunities for both deep technical innovation all the way to the microelectronics level, and business deals with MySQL users not yet turned into customers.

Jonathan is absolutely very familiar with MySQL, and he wants us to win. I have a hard time imagining how anybody but Jonathan could better combine being humble and down-to-earth with an attitude for winning. If I had merely read his concluding statement, I wouldn’t have been nearly as thrilled as I am having experienced it:

“I don’t want to be shy about winning. If you don’t win with a smile on your face, why bother?“

The last few days before the Sun-MySQL Integration Kickoff happening 29-31 January 2008 at Sun’s headquarters in Menlo Park, quite a few European MySQLers have approached me with concerns related to the potential danger of a skewed focus on the US in the integration discussions. After all, MySQL AB originates in Scandinavia and almost a majority of our employees work outside the US, so some aspects of MySQL AB should remain Scandinavian or European, even though we’re been acquired by a Silicon Valley based company.

While this geographic concern will remain on my agenda, yesterday evening provided some peace of mind on this account. Summoned by our Scandinavian CEO, a group of MySQLers (American and European) met at the Ikea restaurant in East Palo Alto.

Both the furniture and the food at Ikea looked much like in Gloms, Esbo (in my native Finland), or Kungens kurva close to Stockholm, or anywhere in Europe. Or presumably anywhere in the world. Even the meatballs tasted the same.

Another point of comfort for worried Europeans is the German Handelsblatt blog, where the blogger wonders who actually acquired whom — and what “the Vikings” will make happen with the acquiring company.

We’ll see!

Long before I first got to know about Sun’s acquisition of MySQL, I had booked this year’s prime skiing holiday. That’s going to be the week right after the Integration Kickoff in Menlo Park, on 3-9 February 2008. And it’s a special type of skiing holiday: It’s Boys Only, i.e. I’m going with my 13 year old son Alexander to Pitztal in Austria.

We’re going to the Ötztaler Gletscher, the glacier where Ötzi the Iceman, a well-preserved natural mummy of a man from about 3300 BC (53 centuries ago) was found in 1991.

Determined not to end up like Ötzi, Alexander and I will get extensive off-piste training under the direction of a certified Austrian mountain guide who according to his web profile has climbed “Cho Oyu, Elbrus, Mt. Mc Kinley, Ojos del Salado, Mustagh Ata, Pumo Ri and Aconcagua” and is heading for Shisha Pangma (8013 m) later this year. We’re walking uphill with furs under our skis so we won’t slip down. The main summit to be reached is the Wildspitze, at 3772 m Austria’s second-highest mountain next to Großglockner. Learning how to climb off-piste terrain and how to use various glacier equipment (such as beepers for finding skiers buried in avalanches) during the day, we’ll be relaxing at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten in the evening. It’s huge sauna and wellness area makes it just a tad more luxurious than the spartaneous Dortmunder Hütte or Johannishütte, where I’ve spent earlier adventures with the DAV Summit Club, the tour organiser owned by the German Alpine Association (the world’s largest alpine association).

Der Berg ruft! [1]

[1] The mountain calls.

Monday, I’m off to the Sun-MySQL Integration Offsite in Menlo Park. That’s where we’re going to plan the next steps of making MySQL a part of Sun. It’s a three-day offsite, from Tuesday to Thursday, and I’m looking forward to meeting with many new colleagues.

Integrating companies is never easy, and I don’t expect this integration to be trivial, either. But thinking about the many cultural similarities between MySQL and Sun, about our mutual commitment to Open Source, about the positive reception of the acquisition by MySQL employees, and about the positive reception also from the side of Sun, I think we’re in for a great ride and some exciting times, in the best sense of the words.

Sun, here we come!

I spent a couple of hours on Friday at Sun’s office in Finland. It was a visit full of mutual anticipation.

Until the deal is closed, Sun and MySQL are merely planning joint activities, with execution happening once the deal is closed. Already now, lots of touching points were revealed in the informal discussions with Margot Wik, Thomas Branders and their colleagues. It seems both Sun and MySQL have a hard time not going into detail, but such are the rules of the game.

Before Sun Finland’s Friday afternoon coffee, Margot, Thomas and I picked the opportunity to drop by at Teknologföreningen, the Swedish language student corporation at Helsinki University of Technology. That’s the place where I learned to know Margot and Thomas, as well as our CEO Mårten, and many others. And where I “learned” how to sing Helan går. Some things hadn’t changed much since the early 1980s. Oh, perhaps our age. Margot was looking out for classmates from school, not of her own, but of her eldest son.

The afternoon coffee drew what I understood to be a large crowd. Sun Finland has about 130 employees, and I counted over 60 coffee and tea drinkers. With Finland being the country where most of MySQL’s original code was written, I spent some time explaining the early days of MySQL, both pre-1995 (when MySQL was first released) and pre-2001 (when VC funding started the commercial growth of MySQL). We then quickly moved on to more current issues, and my impression was that the Sun guys in Finland have a hard time waiting for the action to start.

I could imagine less fortunate stars, under which to start an integration process!

Two employees of Sun Finland, Margot Wik (whom I studied French with in the 1980s at the Helsinki University of Technology) and Thomas Branders (another fellow HUT student, from whom I tried to learn how to sing Helan går while having fun at HUT’s Swedish language student corporation Teknologföreningen, but don’t blame him for the end result on YouTube) invited me to Sun Finland’s Friday Coffee Meeting 25.1.2008 at about 14:00. I was happy to accept. It’s only natural to do the inaugural ambassador visit in my native country.

I’m looking forward to learning from Margot, Tomi and their colleagues, and telling them about MySQL!