For me, driving the technological direction in a creative solutions company, I guide both internal staff as well as our clients when it comes time to application and database platforms for anything from enterprise-wide digital strategy to a simple microsite campaign.  How does Oracle’s acquisition affect our assessment of the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) environment as the most appropriate choice for our clients’ needs?  

In the short-term, it doesn’t significantly affect the decision process regarding LAMP.  It would be very unlikely that the MySQL business model would be changed within the next couple years to make it a less desirable web database choice, especially given its strong following by businesses, developers and software vendors.  It’s hugely popular for very good reasons, and at least for now those reasons remain intact.  For the budget-conscious client – especially in this down economy – there may simply be no other choice but to roll the dice and cross the “No More MySQL for Us” bridge if and when they get to it.  Perhaps we’ll be upgrading from LAMP to OPAL (Oracle, PHP, Apache, Linux) as Oracle seizes the branding.  (Better than the acronym for going SQL Server: SLAP?  SSLAP?)

However, for clients who are in the position to both budget for the long term and who are requiring a solution where the long-term application platform is a priority, expect Oracle’s huge move to cast perhaps a shadow of doubt on MySQL’s lock-in as the web database of choice in a LAMP environment.  Especially with those who may have been jilted by a past Oracle experience or perhaps some anti-Oracle zealots.  

For me and my peers in the industry, at this point it’s simply worth a mention when it comes to assessing the long-term feasibility of LAMP and MySQL projects that are on the table.  It’s our job as technology strategists to raise the issue, but collaborate with client to assess if it’s merely an issue or a potential threat to the longevity of what we’re building for them.  We’ll see how this approach evolves as “OPAL” takes shape over the next few years.

Enter the Intelligence Age, where systems don’t simply push data and let people filter to do what they want; rather, the systems use this data to facilitate logical decision-making real-time.  Okay, “Intelligence Age” may be hokey, but the movement toward the concept of intelligently pushing content – the right content to the right people at the right times – based on data is already being used in marketing and advertising, so it’s obviously nothing new.  However, with the maturation of available data itself in this Information Age – in terms of volume, media and speed, rolling intelligent functionality into applications based on empirical trend analyses becomes more necessary every day.

Time to begin adopting this natural next step for the Information Age and build truly pioneering solutions, or get lost behind the curve and build things for those decision-makers who are stuck behind it with you.  Let’s face it, there will be plenty of work on either side of that curve for a long time.

Future posts probably won’t be this awkward to write.