MySql is most widely used open source relational database system in the world written in C, C++ and parser is written in yacc. MySQL works on many platforms, including AIX,Linux, Microsoft Windows, OpenSolaris, Oracle Solaris etc.
MySql was developed by Swedish company called "MySQL AB" which is founded by David Axmark, Allan Larsson and Michael "Monty" Widenius. Original MySQL developed by Widenius and Axmark began in 1994. The first version of MySQL appeared on 23 May 1995. MySQL AB was later on acquired by Sun which was in turn acquired by Oracle Corporation. Currently, MySQL server is developed, updated and maintained by Oracle Corporation.
| Year | Happenings |
|---|---|
| 1995 | MySql Project was initiated by Michael Widenius (Monty), David Axmark and Allan Larsson in Sweden. |
| 2000 | MySQL database system goes open source and releases software under the terms of the GPL. Initialy revenue was dropped by 80% but recover within a year. |
| 2001 | Marten Mickos elected CEO at age 38. He comes with a sales and marketing background. He had worked as CEO of a number of nordic companies prior to joining MySQL, With 2 million active installations. Raised series a with undisclosed amount from Scandinavian venture capitalists. Estimated to be around $1 to $2 million. |
| 2002 | MySQL launched US headquarters in addition to Swedish headquarters. Around 3 million active users. Ended the year with $6.5 million in revenue with 1,000 paying customers. |
| 2003 | MySQL AB raised a $19.5 million series B from Benchmark Capital and Index Ventures. 4 million active installations and over 30,000 downloads per day. Ended the year with $12 million in revenue. |
| 2004 | With the main revenue coming from the oem dual-licensing model, MySQL decides to move more into the enterprise market and to focus more on recurring revenue from end users rather than one-time licensing fees from their oem partners. Ended the year with $20 million in revenue. |
| 2005 | MySQL launched the MySQL network modeled after the Redhat network. The MySQL Network is a subscription service targeted at end users that provides updates, alerts, notifications, and product-level support designed to make it easier for companies to manage hundreds of MySQL servers. MySQL 5 ships with many new features to go after enterprise users (e.g. stored procedures, triggers, views, cursors, distributed transactions, federated storage engines, etc.) Oracle buys Innobase, the 4-person Finnish company behind MySQL's InnoDB storage backend. Ended the year with $34 million in revenue based on 3400 customers. |
| 2006 | Finally, oracle tried to buy MySQL. Oracle' CEO Larry Ellison commented: "we've spoken to them, in fact we've spoken to almost everyone. Are we interested? It's a tiny company. I think the revenues from MySQL are between $30 million and $40 million. Oracle's revenue next year is $15 billion.". Oracle buys Sleepycat, the company that provides MySQL with the Berkeley DB transactional storage engine. Marten Mickos announces that they are making MySQL ready for an IPO in 2008 on an projected $100 million in revenues. 8 million active installations. MySQL has 320 employees in 25 countries, 70 percent of whom work from home. Raised a $18 million Series C based on a rumored valuation north of $300 million. MySQL is estimated to have a 33% market share measured in install base and 0.2% market share measured in revenue (the database market was a $15 billion market in 2006). Ended the year with $50 million in revenue. |
| 2007 | Ended the year with $75 million in revenue. |
| 2008 | Sun Microsystems acquired MySQL AB for approximately $1 billion. After acquisition of MySql, Michael Widenius (Monty) and David Axmark leave Sun shortly. |
| 2009 | Sun has now lost the business and spiritual leaders that turned MySQL into a success. Sun Microsystems and Oracle announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion. |