I hear now about a new competition for the MySQL® Users. The ‘MySQL® 5.1 Use Case Competition’ has been just launched by the Community Team @ SUN|MySQL.

If you submit a MySQL® 5.1 Use Case Report to the Community Team by 31 August 2008 you will have a chance of winning:

• 1st-3rd prize: A MySQL Conference & Expo 2009 Pass, including a dinner with MySQL co-founder Michael “Monty” Widenius
• 4th-10th prize: MySQL® Community Contributor T-shirts
• 11th-20th prize: A Sakila mascot (MySQL®’s pet dolphin)

More information at http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/MySQL_5_1_Use_Case_Competition.

[Reminder for the Community Team: the page …

And on goes my fascination with open source companies and their valuations…

I was reading Stephen O’Grady’s commentary on open source companies and their valuations prompted by the recent acquisition of MySQL by Sun for $1 billion. He quotes Jeff Gould who logically questions whether Sun can make the acquisition pay-off.

Stephen also quotes a piece from Knowledge@Wharton on the myth of market share.

It is a common practice of many companies to focus their attention on grabbing market share from their competitors. But such efforts can actually be detrimental to the firm’s profitability, according to Wharton marketing professor J. Scott …