Source: Oracle

Customers have been leaving Sun and its uncertain future since the Oracle acquisition was announced for the stability of IBM, HP and Dell. The recent EU decision to continue evaluating the Sun acquisition prolongs the uncertainty surrounding Sun. On the surface, this ad is clearly intended to stop, or at least reduce, this unsettling customer trend.

Matt points out that there is no mention of MySQL in the advertisement. I'll take it one step further and point out that there is no mention of any part of Sun's software division (save for Solaris with its SPARC linkage). Nothing about Java, GlassFish, MySQL, OpenOffice, Netbeans, etc. R&D investments or sales support.

This is somewhat understandable. Why would Oracle pledge to "spend more money developing Sun xyz" software product when Oracle already has a competitive product in their existing portfolio. In some cases, Oracle *may* spend more developing the Sun product. In other cases, Oracle *may* spend significantly less, or even kill the product. But one would expect a blanket "we're committed to protecting customer investments in Sun Software" or something like that.

I find the timing of this ad surprising. What better way to placate EU fears that Oracle is going to "hurt MySQL and open source choice" than publishing an ad that completely ignores MySQL or Sun's software portfolio?

Most have speculated that Oracle was really after Sun's software assets, and was likely to sell the Sun hardware/systems division after the acquisition was approved.  This advertisement would suggest otherwise. But hey, it's an Oracle advertisement.  Take it with a grain of salt.