For the typical CIO who is using Sun or MySQL, this bodes well. Green and Mikos, agree that this deal brings a wide variety of new customers into focus for both companies.

Sun's enterprise expertise will be leveraged to further optimize MySQL in scaling up and out. Simultaneously, as MySQL is deployed into additional enterprise environments, Sun will bring to bear its expertise in standing behind users for support in high-availability or mission-critical environments.

Zak Greant, an electronic frontier strategist and free software and open-source advocate, is the founder of Foo Associates and has a background in MySQL. "From the outside," he said, "it looks good. Sun has had a strong, consistent approach for the past three years." He estimates that the biggest practical outworking for MySQL will be in the perception of stability, and he anticipates seeing tighter product integration as time goes on.

For Sun, it represents "more opportunity to be more important to more customers," he said, adding that many of these may now take a more serious look at Sun's hardware offerings.

Open-source advocates are likely to be at peace with the deal as well. Mikos referred to Sun as the "perfect home" for MySQL, noting that no other company has made as much commitment to open source as Sun, "and that's part of the beauty of the story," he said.

For the CIO who is not using Sun or MySQL, it may be time to review vendors when the question comes up again; the marriage of these two companies, in some cases, will mean a new single-source vendor is available. If this was a determining factor in past decisions, there's a competent new suitor in the field.

As for investors—Sun's stock price has been moving upward this morning.

Brent Toderash has spent his career in business and IT as a manager, consultant, and entrepreneur. He is a freelance writer, thinker, and strategist working from Winnipeg, Canada.