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Fortune Magazine Profiles MySQL AB
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jun 02, 2006 11:35 AM
from the distributed-working dept.
from the distributed-working dept.
hdtv writes "Fortune magazine profiles MySQL AB, a midsize company with a fairly large footprint. Fortune magazine popped in on another corporate party, which just happened to take place online across countries and continents." From the article: "'When a company is as spread out as this one,' Basil explains, 'you have to think of virtual ways to imitate the dynamics of what goes on in a more familiar employment situation.' That neatly sums up the broader challenge that many companies are confronting: how to nurture a bond among workers who rarely, if ever, meet. Few businesses are as spread out as MySQL, which employs 320 workers in 25 countries, 70 percent of whom work from home."
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Fortune Magazine Profiles MySQL AB
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Ha (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://twoturtlelovers.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday May 25, @03:01PM)
Now that's how to gain customers! Insult them in FORTUNE magazine!
Re:Ha (Score:4, Funny)
(http://twoturtlelovers.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday May 25, @03:01PM)
If Larry Wall wasn't lazy, he probably woulda created Perl to be more like Python
yes.. quite the model company (Score:1)
(http://www.biernacki.ca/)
Wouldn't that exclude most of
They really seem to like their workers spread out don't they?
Re:yes.. quite the model company (Score:5, Funny)
Nerds make good software engineers.
A defining characteristics of nerds is that people don't like them.
Nerds are people too.
Conclusion:
Nerds don't like other nerds, and are happier with distance between them.
I work in a distributed organisation (Score:2)
(http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday August 09 2006, @03:53PM)
Last weekend, I met the vice-president of the organisation I work for for the first time. I've been working there over a year. I think I've met my boss 5 times.
We try to go to free software [compsoc.com] conferences more than normal so that we all bump into each other.
Other than that, it's pretty much email all the way, with a little irc.
The next big free software conference in Europe is the 3rd international GPLv3 conference [fsfeurope.org] in Barcelona, June 22/23.
Before that, I saw my boss in Manchester, England, and before that we met in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
You know what they say about companies with big... (Score:4, Funny)
(Last Journal: Tuesday June 06 2006, @01:50PM)
They wear big shoes.
InnoDB fulltext in 2018? (Score:1, Interesting)
Buy your employees online games (Score:2, Interesting)
(http://w33t.com/)
Or you could more closely emmulate a real-world meeting with a sandbox game like Second Life and actually create a meeting area. With Second Life you could even show slideshows and stream a video presentation (given that you have the bandwidth for the video since it streams from you and not second life's servers).
--
Music should be free
Re:Buy your employees online games (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.dylanbrams.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday September 01, @01:42PM)
Been there. At my
MMORPG's can build teams, yes, but they are designed to suck people in so fast and hard that they don't even realise it when they don't come out. I have no problem with this post if it was meant as a joke, but "insightful" is the worst moderation I've seen in years.
To commute or not to commute that is the ... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.infiltrated.net/)
Anyhow back to the article... spot talent among the company's army of volunteers - a minor league for software programmers. I wouldn't agree with that statement in the article. Most software programmers who do open source programming often have professional programming jobs. Calling them "minor league" is off the mark... There are a few other issues with the article as well: Civilians are being enticed to work free. MySQL owes them nothing for their efforts. Contributors are doing work for enjoyment, for getting a good product they can use. MySQL should and probably does show them via acknowledgment appreciation via mentions. I mean think of placing "MySQL Developer" on a resume. It holds weight...
How long can that last? Eventually, it would seem, these hard-working geeks are bound to feel exploited - or migrate to another product's fan club. Even Widenius acknowledges the possibility. For those that do go, others will pop up in their place. Many choose to support this environment because it is beneficial in the long run to them. If I started a SOHO company, why wouldn't I contribute if I'm getting the program for free as opposed to dishing out for Oracle.
"These users have their own needs to satisfy," he says. "Their main motivation is that they are lazy, and once they fix a problem, they want the fix to be in the next version of the software so they don't have to make the same changes again." I wouldn't call the users lazy by reporting problems. I would call them content with getting a good stable product and contributing to the product.
Parthenogenesis? (Score:5, Funny)
I can understand existing without a wife or girlfriend. (This is Slashdot.)
But without parents? The last young bachelor who claimed to be the product of parthenogenesis wound up nailed to a tree.
These days, that's bad for business. Can you imagine trying to explain it to his HMO three days later?
Wowsers (Score:5, Funny)
That's a lot of employees! They need an Oracle db!
what some fail to understand (Score:2, Insightful)
(http://observationsmade.blogspot.com/)
MySQL is the exception to the rule (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.codemonkeyramblings.com/)
What would make working in an office a much more enjoyable environment is if there were fewer protections for thin-skinned people and you didn't have to feel like you had to "watch yourself" or an employee could complain like a toddler about hurt feewings to management and get you fired to avert a lawsuit. If people could be themselves more easily while working, that would help a lot.
Management problems? (Score:2)
Man, I hate when managers refer to their direct reports as sheeple!
--Rob
sounds like my old co. (Score:1, Interesting)
We mostly all telecommuted, except for the partners who all worked in their main office 2 steps from the beach. They would even buy lunch EVERYDAY for in-house staff, or staff who happened to be in the office that day. It was a great group of people and a great company to work for, even though it was small and on a (somewhat) tight budget.
I worked via telecommute (phone, IM, IRC) for 3 years, and enjoyed every minute of it in my home office, listening to music as loud as I want, and maximizing my creativity/productivity due to minimal distraction.
The only draw back was it consumed my entire life. I became unable to seperate my work life from my home life, and i was working 10-16hrs a day, sometimes all night long (literally). I felt like I was cracked out on code! hehe
Now, I'm a cubicle farmer, and try to work from home when at all possible, but my present employer isn't as flexible when it comes to working from home (although it is allowed).
I've learned to enjoy working in an office, although it really goes against my beliefs. *Think Kunta Kinte*
Lawsuite invitation (Score:2, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Wednesday October 31, @08:33AM)
Avoid the men, look for the women... (Score:1)
I bet he looks for young women with a wife or girlfriend instead! At least I would. ;-)
Fortune profiles MySQL (Score:4, Funny)
Distributed Organisation (Score:5, Informative)
The whole idea behind the distributed organisation is an interesting one, and we are very proud to be featured in Fortune Magazine. And we wouldn't be there where it not for the support from our community - so thank you!
As for the quote that was attributed to me, it is not correct word by word. My point was that if you work from your home, it is important that you have some other devotion too, in addition to the company you work for (MySQL in this case). Otherwise you may lose perspective. That other devotion can be nearly anything. For Erik Granström in Sweden it is his family, his sheep farm (yes, he is also a farmer), and writing books.
I would be keen to hear how others deal with this. What tricks and techniques do you have for enjoying working from home, for being productive, for being social with colleagues who are thousands of kilometers/miles away? Let us know!
Marten Mickos, CEO, MySQL AB
Hybrid (Score:1)
Wasn't MySQL AB recently purchased by Oracle? Just curious...
caught again? (Score:1)
this gives a whole new twist to the "not in the same state" excuse ;)
* lon3st4r *
Re:why: because its powerful and cost-effective (Score:2)
MySQL is completely free of charge for all companies, commercial or not, provided the company isn't redistributing MySQL outside the company, notably as part of its own products. Support contracts are per-server (except for the MySQL Cluster engine), not per-seat and are optional (though recommended for any serious business, of course).
Those who do get to pay are those who distribute non-open source applications with MySQL and/or its libraries outside their own company.
If you do want to compare on cost and performance:
Source: SPEC jAppServer2004 results [spec.org] and licensing fees from the companies. Please see the SPEC page for full disclosures and system descriptions.
That translates to massive savings coupled with tremendous real-time load capacity, particularly with multiple servers in a modern cost-effective scale-out architecture, and is part of why MySQL is so popular.