ACADEMIA

MySQL AB, developer of the world's most popular open source database, today announced its second straight quarter of financial profitability and another record year of enterprise sales wins and technical achievement. "Our fourth quarter shipment of MySQL 5.0 allowed us to close the strongest month, quarter and year in our ten-year history," said Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL AB. "With 4 million downloads since it launched in October, MySQL 5.0 is proving its relevance to open source developers and corporate enterprises alike. In 2006, we look forward to another great year of growth for the MySQL ecosystem of community users, industry partners and commercial customers." Last year, MySQL added over 2,000 new customers who selected MySQL to power their Web sites, critical business applications and packaged software due to its superior performance, reliability, ease-of-deployment and significant cost savings. Corporate, professional services and OEM customers in the fourth quarter included Axway, Cardinal Health, Caterpillar, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Classmates.com, eClinicalWorks, Finnish National Public Health Institute, MacPractice, Mainstream Advertising, Neckermann Versand AG, Ongame, Orbitz, Proofpoint, PROTRADE, Roland Messerli AG, RightNow Technologies, SAGEM Monetel, SAS, SEAT Pagine Gialle S.p.A, Smurfit Stone, The Spirit Group (UK), Telio, Tellme Networks, Thales Avionics, Tiscali, the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and WebTrends Inc. "Using MySQL and other open source technologies, RightNow has built an enterprise-class CRM application hosting environment that supports over 3,000 deployments for some of the world's largest organizations," said Greg Gianforte, CEO and founder of RightNow. "Our systems have facilitated over 1 billion customer interactions on behalf of our clients while maintaining reliability at or above 99.97 percent. Money spent on proprietary databases, when there is a viable open source alternative, is money wasted." MySQL's 2005 corporate highlights included: -- The introduction of MySQL Network -- Launched in February, MySQL Network is a comprehensive, attractively-priced subscription offering that provides modern enterprises with everything they need to successfully develop and deploy scale-out database solutions with MySQL. It includes access to certified MySQL software, updates and upgrades, proactive alerts and advisors, the online MySQL knowledgebase and full production-level technical support. -- The delivery of MySQL 5.0 -- The latest version of MySQL combines enterprise-grade reliability and performance with advanced SQL 2003 standard-compliant features, making it the most cost-effective database for business-critical applications. The product's new functionality is especially familiar to database developers and DBAs of proprietary relational database systems -- allowing IT departments to ease the integration and transition of their data, applications and skill sets. -- New partnerships with major hardware and software vendors and distributors, including Afina, Agresso, Bell Micro, Business Objects, CarahSoft, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Ingram Micro, Novell, Red Hat, SCO and SSA Global. -- The defeat of major software patent legislation in Europe -- As Europe's largest open source software company, MySQL AB celebrated a major victory for the software development community after the EU Parliament overwhelmingly rejected legislation that would have allowed patents on software. The company was a major sponsor of Florian Mueller's successful nosoftwarepatents.com campaign -- along with Red Hat, 1&1 and others. -- New Members of Management Team -- In 2005, MySQL AB filled out its management team with a number of experienced senior executives, including Mark Burton, executive vice president of worldwide sales; Dennis Wolf, Chief Financial Officer; Richard Mason, vice president of EMEA; and the promotion of Kaj Arno as vice president of open source community relations. Dennis Wolf, CFO of MySQL AB, said, "We are very satisfied with our company's operational performance -- delivering new software and closing enterprise and OEM sales deals. As the second-largest independent open source software company in the world, MySQL is in an extremely fast growing sector, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate of more than 100 percent over the past four years."