Chief Executive Scott McNealy offered the provocative idea Thursday at a meeting of influential financial analysts at Sun's headquarters here. During a speech, he showed a slide that placed the words "Sun DB" next to a list of existing database products.
McNealy offered no details besides "stay tuned," but Sun President Jonathan Schwartz indicated in an interview that database software is one possible way Sun plans to extend into new open-source software realms.
"I think it's clear the market has spoken that open source is the path that the developer community and the customer community wants to drive down, and I think we're going to do what we can to try to give customers as big a set of options as we can," Schwartz said. "I don't think it's going to be limited to simply operating systems. Maybe it will extend to file systems, maybe it will extend to databases, maybe it will extend to middleware."
William Hurley, an analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, believes Sun will eventually offer a database to flesh out its server software suite. But a direct fight with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison would be foolhardy and unlikely.
"I would counsel strongly against them acquiring database technology to go head-to-head with Oracle," Hurley said.
If Sun chooses a partnership for a database, one company stands out from the alternatives: Computer Associates International, which is working to bring more attention to its 30-year-old and now open-source Ingres database. "We have ongoing efforts with Sun, and some of those efforts include Ingres," said Tony Gaughan, senior vice president of development at CA.
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