Not long ago Sun Microsystems was a company which used to shy away from open source code but with the passage of time all this has changed for good and the company is trying to position itself as one of the biggest supporter of open source. They have even gone ahead and recently brought open source database software maker SQL for a whopping $1 billion.

A major chunk of their $2 billion fund for R&D is being allocated to its engineers around the world working on Java, Solaris and now MySQL too will be joining the list. Now the company believes the open source company tags is giving them large exposure when compared with its competitors but in the process of driving volumes and expanding its user base the company might end up upsetting its various partners. For e.g. the MySQL deal could upset its relation with Oracle.

Jonathan Schwartz, CEO, Sun Microsystems says:

With this move we are not focused on competition, but rather on markets and consumers. Opening up these technologies to more consumers and being able to have Sun's service and support team behind MySQL was the most important reason for us

Let's see how far does its open source initiative takes it but one thing is for sure that the company will get the added respect of the developer community.