MySQL was created by a Swedish company, MySQL AB, which was founded in 1995. The company was later acquired by Sun Microsystems in the year 2008 for about $1 billion.
The project of MySQL began in the year 1979 in the form of UNIREG which was an in-house database tool developed to manage databases. UNIREG was created by Michael Widenius. Following the creation of UNIREG, it was rewritten in several different languages to make it capable of handling big databases.
MySQL, named after Michael Widenius’s daughter, “My”, was created by combining mSQL and UNIREG. Michael Widenius and David Hughes, who had created mSQL, collaborated to connect mSQL to UNIREG’s B+ ISAM handler to provide indexing in mSQL.
Development of MySQL over the years:
1995 |
Michael Widenius, David Axmark, and Allan Larsson founded MySQL AB in Sweden. |
2000 |
MySQL releases under GPL (General Public License) and goes open source. This led to an 8 |
2001 |
Marten Mickos, a sales and marketing person, was elected the CEO. |
2002 |
The user base of MySQL reaches above 3 million. Revenue for the year was around $6.5. US headquarters was also launched this year. |
2003 |
4 million active users with 30,000 downloads per day, revenue reaches $l2 million. |
2004 |
MySQL moves into the enterprise market and shifts from one-time licensing fees from OEM partners to recurring revenues from end users. Revenue reaches $20. |
2005 |
MySQL network launched. MySQL 5 ships with many new features. Revenues around $34. |
2006 |
Oracle tries to buy MySQL. MySQL has a 3 |
2007 |
The year ended with a revenue of $75 million. |
2008 |
Sun Microsystem acquires MySQL AB for $1 billion. |
2009 |
Oracle acquired Sun’s common stock for about $7.4 billion. |
