The last two days, Tokyo witnessed the first MySQL users conference in Asia. Held in the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan) in Odaiba, it was a very informative event in a relaxed atmosphere.

Participants got insight into existing MySQL features like clustering as well as new features that will be offered in MySQL 5.1 (currently available as beta release). Unfortunately, MySQL 6.0 (alpha) and the Falcon storage engine in particular were not mentioned (except one session in Japanese). Also, I expected a more aggressive presentation comparing features or performance with competitors like Oracle, IBM or Microsoft. Instead, MySQL AB concentrated on the main values and presented interesting case studies where the success speaks for itself. One of the biggest showcases for MySQL in Japan is mixi, a huge SNS site which is developed in Perl and MySQL.

I got the overall impression that MySQL AB is not pushing very hard to sell their products or services. Especially the CEO’s Scandinavian drinking song performance (and the smashing of his glass afterwards) was more impressive than his business model (“We want to make money”). The support from the open source community and the quality of their database technologies seem to be enough to spread the word.

MySQL is the preferred database management system at CyberMedia and is used in most of its projects.

[lightbox http://blog.cyber-media.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/Image/mysql_conference.jpg [MySQL Users Conference Japan 2007]][/lightbox]
Keynote: What’s so different about MySQL (09/12/07)