Monthly Archives: February 2009

Marten Mickos, former MySQL CEO, is to depart Sun

Posted on by
Reply

via 451 CAOS Theory

It seems that SUN will not communicate on that, but Marten Mickos, the former MySql CEO, is leaving SUN, after about 1 year… I remember one of my post in February 2008 with some explanations about the “why” of this merge, directly from Marten. Outch. Something didn’t work as planed there.

Some more information below.

I just got news that Marten Mickos, former MySQL CEO, is to depart Sun amid a reorganisation of its infrastructure and database business units. Don’t expect an announcement from Sun on this, but the news is confirmed.

[…] Marten will be transitioning out of Sun by the end of the company’s (current) third quarter.

Marten’s departure is a big loss for Sun and follows quickly after the departures of Monty Widenius and David Axmark.

[…] Matt Asay is right, Marten’s departure “is likely to lead to an exodus among MySQL’s deep talent pool”. This needn’t be a complete disaster – the same thing happened at JBoss and Red Hat has recovered from that, but this is going to be a serious test for Sun’s ability to maximize on the potential of MySQL and its other open source assets.

Matt also writes that “Mickos was the backbone of MySQL’s rising revenues, as an open-source pragmatist and visionary. He was the face of MySQL, but also of the rising open-source industry.” This is true, and for that reason I hope it’s not too long before we see him taking charge at another vendor.

Good luck to Marten, hope to see him asap in a new role!

What is a great software company

Posted on by
Reply

via Judith Hurwitz

Judith is discussing the difference between a good and a great software company.

Interesting insights!

1. Great companies start with a predictable business model and turn the model upside down. They look three years ahead and experiment with innovation. They have to have a combination of intuition, risk, and innovation. These companies are willing to take enough risk to win big but smart enough to know the difference between great opportunities and pipe dreams.

2. Great companies find new areas to position themselves for leadership. This is very tough to pull off. The area has to be important enough for the market to pay attention to but not too big that they look silly.  Great companies never try to take a big existing market with established leaders and try to claim primacy.

3. Great companies build great relationships. Management at these companies builds an ecosystem of influencers including great customers who will talk about the value, press, analysts, and partners who together help the company create a persona of innovation and greatness while the company is still building.

Great software companies are complicated to build.   The software business a complicated and brutal with  lots of failures at every turn.  […] It isn’t easy. Great software companies are even more difficult and scary to build.

Gosh, 37 years old!

Posted on by
Reply

Yes, today is my birthday. 37 years old.

Thanks to Laurent and Mathieu for their wishes via Twitter.

And thanks to Stephen, Thomas, Patrick, Robert, Géraldine for their nice words via Facebook.

And thanks to all my friends and colleagues who have sent me a mail, as Martine, Doris, Bruno, Manu, Olivier, Andreas, Salah.

And thanks to all, my friends and family, who has contacted me per telephone today.

And thanks to my wife and son, Laurence and Julien, for their surprise this morning :-)

Special thanks to Martinique for her Frangipani (picture taken in Senegal).

birthday

And to the Xing team for their virtual birthday cake ;-)

birthday

From an Innoveo CI/CD point of view, Andreas (our designer) won the price ;-)

birthday

A year more, but thanks to everybody, a nice and brilliant day!

PS: yesterday evening, we had a cool dinner at “La Table de Louise”. Very nice local, very friendly and professional service, great food, and … 3 birthdays to celebrate the same evening at 3 different tables :-)