There seems to be many questions and few solutions about MariaDB plc’s long-term technique following an announcement that its shareholders have accepted a proposal by California-based funding agency K1 Funding Administration.
Information that the corporate that gives database and SaaS providers across the open-source database MariaDB had been acquired got here on Monday, when it was introduced {that a} trio of firms—K1; Meridian Bidco LLC, a K1 affiliate; and K5 Capital Advisors—“now have irrevocable shareholder assist in respect of 68.51% of MariaDB shares.”
The corporate has had a litany of economic points over the previous 12 months, however when it launched monetary outcomes for the quarter ended March 31 final week there was one vibrant spot: Its internet loss had shrunk to $3.5 million, in comparison with a internet Lack of $11.9 million a 12 months earlier.
“We’ve demonstrated our capability to shortly flip our monetary story round and are optimistic concerning the future efficiency of the enterprise,” Paul O’Brien, CEO of MariaDB plc stated in a press release accompanying the monetary outcomes.
As reported in InfoWorld in February, after going public in December 2022, the corporate noticed its market capitalization plummet from $445 million to round $10 million by the tip of 2023.
Carl Olofson, analysis vice chairman and database analyst with IDC, stated that the important thing to figuring out what occurs subsequent is why the acquisition occurred within the first place.
Whereas executives at K1 and MariaDB plc have but to touch upon their future plans, Olofson stated that “whenever you see one thing like this, there’s one in every of two motivations. One is that you just need to dismantle the corporate, and make a revenue from the property, which isn’t going to be the case right here, as a result of they don’t actually have property.
“The opposite possibility is to essentially imagine that with correct administration, the precise method, the corporate can develop far past the place it’s at now—make fabulous earnings, promote it off and everyone walks away completely happy.”
Within the open supply database house, he stated, there’s a huge distinction relating to mental property (IP) between MariaDB and MySQL, the open-source database of which MariaDB is a fork. Within the case of MySQL, the IP is owned by Oracle, however for MariaDB “it’s owned by the MariaDB neighborhood, which isn’t a part of the corporate. There’s a clear distinction between MariaDB, the corporate, and MariaDB, the neighborhood.”
Olofson added that no matter what occurs to the company entity, the neighborhood will proceed.
The open supply challenge was created by Michael “Monty” Widenius, who was additionally a creator of MySQL. He arrange the corporate Monty Program Ab which later turned MariaDB, the corporate, and likewise the MariaDB Basis, which is the custodian of the challenge’s open-source code.
Olofson spoke with Widenius briefly final 12 months at a MariaDB person convention and described him as an “open supply purist” who desires to “simply put know-how on the market and let folks do what they may with it.” However whereas that angle may be nice for customers, it’s not good for MariaDB, the corporate: “That doesn’t actually assist it in making an attempt to outlive commercially and meet payroll,” Olofson stated.
As for the industrial aspect, whereas Olofson has no thought what K1’s company technique may be shifting ahead, he stated one possibility is to “go down the well-worn path of different open supply software program firms which might be making an attempt to make a dwelling from the know-how by what’s referred to as an open core method.”
That was already MariaDB’s technique—it provides paid add-ons equivalent to MaxScale, ColumnStore, or Galera Cluster, in addition to consulting, migration and managed cloud providers—“however they principally simply ran out of cash,” stated Olofson.
“They had been including some actually thrilling and progressive options ,” he stated, “after which they pulled again from a few of that. I interpreted that as which means they didn’t have the cash to proceed to assist growth.”
InfoWorld reached out to each MariaDB plc and K1 for remark, however at press time had not heard from both group.
Copyright © 2024 IDG Communications, Inc.
