EWeek: MySQL Update Puts a Toe Into Big Vendors' Database Turf

MySQL Update Puts a Toe Into Big Vendors' Database Turf has some info on the 4.1 release (available here) with some commentary:

At this point, MySQL is the world's most popular open-source database. In the spring, Forrester Research Inc. surveyed 140 large North American companies on their open-source plans and found that MySQL was high on respondents' project lists, with 52 percent of respondents reporting that they were using it or planned to use it.

Still, database giants such as Oracle Corp. sneer at the idea of MySQL competing. Open-source databases' share of the RDBMS market is negligible, with the following fears comprising the list of what scares CIOs away from the technology, according to research done by Garry:

• Informal product support.
  
• Rate of feature change, with some CIOs concerned that changes happen too slowly and others concerned about exactly the opposite.
  
• Lack of a product road map.
  
• Functional gaps.
  
• Licensing caveats.
  
• Low ISV support.
  

Many of these fears are irrational when applied to MySQL, Garry said. For example, the company has a formal support program and a product road map, and has secured a strong relationship with at least one ISV: SAP AG.

All that makes me think many CIOs need to choose who they get their info from a little better :)

What's in the 4.1 release, and what is coming up? The 4.1 release includes support of subqueries and derived tables. As for what to expect, from Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL:

"Transaction capabilities have been in the production release for two years now," Mickos wrote in an e-mail exchange. The company is based in Uppsala, Sweden. "Stored procedures, triggers and views are in Version 5.0, which is out as alpha right now and will be in production release next year. Some of our customers have been writing stored procedures for 5.0 for several months already. "