That was an oversite because I know enough to say MySQL is not even up to SQL Server 2000 more like SQL Server 7.0 with service packs. And yes Oracle owns INNODB storage but Sun with time will only improve on the existing product.

I will never say it can be compared to Oracle or SQL Server but money and brains improve products overtime Sun have both.

Oracle paid more than 200 million dollar for INNODB storage so Sun did not pay too much for MySQL. Both Oracle and Microsoft improved their products by buying other companys with features needed to improve each products. If Sun did not buy MySQL things would only get worse IBM runs on all operating systems including Windows same thing with Oracle and SQL Server runs only on Windows.

On a side note Microsoft owns most none ANSI SQL Transaction through Jim Gray.