Alex Stetsenko

Dries Buytaert did some research and compiled a timeline of MySQL AB’s history.

1995

• MySQL AB founded by Michael Widenius (Monty), David Axmark and Allan Larsson in Sweden.

2000

• MySQL goes Open Source and releases software under the terms of the GPL. Revenues dropped 80% as a result, and it took a year to make up for it.

2001

• Mårten Mickos elected CEO at age 38. Mårten was the CEO of a number of Nordic companies before joining MySQL, and comes with a sales and marketing background.
• 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.
• 3 million active users.
• Ended the year with $6.5 million in revenue with 1,000 paying customers.

2003

• 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 and includes 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

• Mårten Mickos confirms that 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.
• Mårten 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.
• Michael Widenius (Monty) and David Axmark, two of MySQL AB’s co-founders, begin to criticize Sun publicly and leave Sun shortly after.

2009

• Mårten Mickos leaves Sun and becomes entrepreneur-in-residence at Benchmark Capital. 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.