MySQL Hits $50 Million Revenue, Plans IPO 124
An anonymous coward writes "MySQL, purveyor of the open-source database of the same name, is on the road to becoming a publicly traded company, bolstered by $50 million in revenue in 2006. "It's still in the pipeline," Chief Executive Marten Mickos said of the plan to hold an initial public offering of his company's stock. He declined to discuss when the company planned to go public, but said, "We're making good progress, doing all the things we need to get done.""
Re:Capitalists = Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Programmers gotta pay the rent you know..
interesting timing for an IPO (Score:5, Insightful)
The contention between the two giants has been heating up, and MySQL is steadily gaining ground on SQL Server for marketshare.
Couple that with Google's recent contributions to the MySQL project and statements by one of thier engineer's (Callahan?) that they would continue to enhance the DB & pump the code back into the community... focusing on stability, recovery, and fine tuning code.
Looks like Google could be contending with M$ on at least three fronts soon counting search, office, & now DB's through MySQL.
I want to see them rumble. The timing of this IPO is very interesting.
Regards.
Re:Capitalists = Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Capitalists = Evil (Score:4, Insightful)
Plus, if they're making money through support, that means there are people, and more importantly companies, willing to put their faith in OSS. That's major, really.
Pump and Dump Scheme (Score:5, Insightful)
It is a warning to everyone who thinks that mysql will be immediately better for going public.
In my finance class I learned that the best way to grow a company is on revenues. Second best is private equity. Near the bottom of the list is public equity.
It's probably the case that Mysql's early investors are looking for their pay day. That's fine, but I'm more concerned about the long term effect of being a public company on the quality of mysql product.
The clever slashdotter with a little cash to gamble with should buy some mysql hold it for a year and dump it. They should come out ahead and be getting out while the picture looks rosy.
Food for thought.
Re:Oh no... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:worrying (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the beauty of free software. If MySQL goes bad the codebase will be forked and another project will rise to take its place. It will be interesting to see what the MySQL prospectus will have to say to investors about this risk.
Good luck to MySQL. I hope they make a go of it, get rich, and don't shoot themselves in the foot by causing a code fork.
Re:Oh no... (Score:2, Insightful)
This makes me all jittery too. I have very little trust of public companies. I think the laws surrounding them are in need of even more serious reform than they've gotten so far (SOX and HIPPA being examples of laws that bring back some accountability).
But, the other person to reply made a really good point about InnoDB. This may not be all bad. And realistically, if it turns bad MySQL can be forked.
Re:worrying (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So much for them. (Score:1, Insightful)
if anyone is forced to bend over and take it, it's the workers, and the workers are who make your products. If managment work it well, the extra cash can build the business and employ smarter peopel and produce happier workers, which means a better product. if they don't, it goes down hill VERY fast.
Re:Oh no... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Capitalists = Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
No. If nobody was being paid to code or profiting from open source software that would be true. Selling closed source software is not the only way to profit from software. IBM hosts OSS, codes OSS, and makes a boatload of cash on OSS. The same is true of many companies. Most programmers work on in-house applications, the idea that companies like Microsoft are where programmers get their bread is a myth.
More open source software means more companies have a greater potential to make money since they have the source code to make applications run in a way that is tailored to them. That opportunity existing means that more companies would take advantage of it and that my friend means more jobs for programmers.
Re:interesting timing for an IPO (Score:2, Insightful)
Are there any business practices that you guys avoid that might be more difficult to avoid after going public?
Egregious VaporWare (or at least totally premature) announcements occur to me as a stockholder appeasing move that a lot of public companies make. Any opinion on this?
Regards and good luck.
Re:So much for them. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oh no... (Score:4, Insightful)
There's something about the diffusion of responsbility involved in a company being public that tends to cause such companies to become inordinately rapacious and evil. All the decision makers can point to the fact that they're 'morally' obligated to do whatever it takes for the company to make as much as it can for stockholders. And the stockholders have a really hard time getting together to tell the company that some actions are just too far.
But when the number of stockholders is smaller and known, their sense of personal responsibility and morality can be appealed to, and they're more likely to pay attention to it regardless.
Of Geese and Golden eggs... (Score:4, Insightful)
By going in for an IPO, Mr.Marten Mickos may be right in that the company will be flush with funds, but then, people will be able to invest in MySQL, the company -- without caring for MySQL, the product or service or technology. Even companies like RedHat making over a billion dollars a year face enormous challenges everyday, in staying loyal to their philosophies and the customers; and avoiding takeovers by unprincipled thugs of all hues in the share markets.
If Mr. Mickos thinks the company is going to get more business because it will now be a public firm, I think that optimism is misplaced and will be short-lived. That new business is going to come from MySQL's reputation of being a public company, not based on the technological superiority or suitability about the product. Should MySQL indeed care for such customers, given that the current mindshare and marketshate has come from the Open Source loving community?
No one can prevent a firm from having an IPO, but I would be very surprised if MySQL can resist a takeover for even 12 months from the IPO. What that would do to employee morale which Mr. Mickos talks about, remains to be seen.
Re:Where is the profit going? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me get this straight. It is by no means, in any way, EVER acceptable in your minds if anyone makes money from developing software, but just in case anybody does, they must immediately hand it over to Stallman?!?
The rank hypocrisy exhibited by you people at times literally leaves me gasping. It is beyond description.