Here’s the thing. Sun buys MySQL for One. Billion. Dollars.
Now, I’m not a businessman. At all. I mean, c’mon, I write for a living, how smart of an money-maker is that?
But in all of the hooplah about Sun buying MySQL–and hey, did you hear, that Sun bought MySQL? Because I don’t think there’s quite enough reporting about it, do you?–I noticed one really weird thing.
In the world of journalism, when you want to take a picture of businessfolk, or the Rotary Club president donating a new swing set to the local elementary school, invariably they settle into the “grip-and-grin” pose. That’s reporter-talk for that three-quarter turn to the camera and shake hands pose that just screams “posed.”
It’s one of those things in the biz, and you sort of just smile and deal with it because, honestly, what else are they going to do?
But take a look at this picture of MySQL’s Martin Mickos and Sun’s Jonathan Schwartz doing their grip-and-grin. Just look!
Come on, Jonathan! Two captains of industry. One ginormous deal. And you wear a T-shirt to the publicity shot?
Clearly, this deal was a mistake, because Sun can’t afford to pay its executives enough salary to even buy polo shirts!