MySQL chief Mickos quits Sun

Marten follows Monty

By Cade Metz in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Posted in Business, 6th February 2009 21:11 GMT

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Former MySQL CEO Marten Mickos is leaving Sun Microsystems, less than a year after Sun paid $1bn for the free-database outfit he helped build.

Sun has confirmed his departure a day after MySQL creator Michael "Monty" Widenius said he was finally leaving the company (to start his own restaurant).

In an email, a Sun spokeswoman said that Mickos would "transition out" of Sun by the end of the company's fiscal third quarter. That gives him another two months in the job at most.

Mickos is billed as the senior vice president of Sun's database group, and as he departs, the company will combine the database group with its software infrastructure group. This combined open-source-happy organization - known as the MySQL & software infrastructure group - will be headed by Sun veteran Karen Tegan Padir. Most recently, Padir served as vice president of the company's enterprise Java platforms group.

Speaking with Cnet, Mickos seems to indicate he did not enjoy the Sun bureaucracy - though the news site does not directly quote him on this issue.

Cnet does reproduce an email that Mickos sent to Sun employees that says the decision to leave was his alone. "I have made a decision to resign from Sun Microsystems. It's a personal decision that I made without anyone influencing me one way or the other (except perhaps my wife)," the email reads.

"My personality is such that I love the challenge of an unproven value proposition, and I love being the top policymaker, building new things. I feel that together, we have accomplished the task set by the owners in 2001, and I am now stepping aside to let the strong managers of the group take over and continue the ambitious business ramp-up."

Though Widenius was the man who originally gave birth MySQL, Mickos has overseen the free database platform for the past 8 years. ®

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