Open season on Open Source
You could forgive Kevin Harvey of Benchmark Capital if he sounded a little smug when I spoke to him earlier today about the eye-catching $1bn sale of MySQL. A longtime venture investor in open source companies, Harvey has had to put up with a few knocks along the way. As he put it:
When we first invested in Red Hat it was thought to be totally insane. When we funded MySQL it was only partly insane. Read more
Database records and a new order for the Web
Hidden behind some billion-dollar database-company acquisitions – on what must be a record-breaking day for number of deals in the sector – came a little funding news that could eventually have equal significance for the way we organise our information online.
While Sun was paying $1bn for MySQL, Oracle was buying BEA Systems for $8.5bn and SAP was wrapping up its $7.15bn Business Objects acquisition, San Francisco-based Metaweb received $42.5m in second-round funding led by Goldman Sachs. Read more
Apple’s video rentals and the ultra-thin MacBook Air are likely to dominate the headlines out of this year’s MacWorld conference and expo. But new products were not the only juicy tidbits to come out of Steve Jobs’s keynote address. Before he launched into his product marketing pitch, the Apple boss rattled off some interesting new statistics about the iPhone that are worth a second look.
With its consumer appeal and lack of support from business ‘push’ email systems like Outlook and Lotus Notes, it is not qute fair to compare the iPhone to business devices like the Blackberry. But it is an impressive performance nonetheless. Read more
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Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
