MySQL AB was a software company that was founded in 1995 but acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008 which was then, in 2010, acquired by Oracle Corporation. MySQL AB is the creator of MySQL, a relational database management system, as well as related products such as MySQL Cluster. The company was dually headquartered in Uppsala, Sweden and Cupertino, California with offices in other countries (Paris, Munich, Dublin, Milan, and Tokyo).
With around 400 employees in 25 countries, MySQL AB was one of the largest open source companies worldwide. Around 70% of the employees worked for MySQL from their home offices.
On 16 January 2008, MySQL AB announced that it had agreed to be acquired by Sun Microsystems for approximately $1 billion. The acquisition completed on 26 February 2008.
Together with Linux, Apache, and PHP, the MySQL Server forms one of the building blocks of the LAMP technology stack. The company claims a user base of over 5 million MySQL installations worldwide and over 10 million product downloads in 2004.
Read more about MySQL AB: Business Model, History