MySQL AB Hires New U.S. Sales VP

UPPSALA, Sweden - (November 27, 2001) - MySQL AB, developer of the world's most popular open source database, today announced that Larry Stefonic has joined the MySQL AB management team as the company's first vice president of sales for the Americas. Mr. Stefonic is responsible for increasing the Sweden-based company's growing presence in the U.S. corporate market through sales of commercial software licenses and MySQL AB services, as well as partnership development.

Mr. Stefonic, who is based in Edmonds, Washington, brings years of successful database business experience to MySQL AB. Previously, he was the director of Worldwide Embedded Sales at Mbrane in Seattle, Washington, where he was responsible for all International and U.S. sales of the company's high performance database engines. Mr. Stefonic also served as the director of North American Sales at Centura Software, a publicly-traded $40 million database and tools company in Seattle, where he was responsible for all Centura product lines. Prior to Centura, Mr. Stefonic led multi-national sales and business development teams at Raima Corporation, where he also opened and managed the company's Australian subsidiary.

"Larry's strong experience in databases, international sales and building successful teams makes him the perfect fit for MySQL as we move more aggressively into the U.S. market," said Mårten Mickos, CEO at MySQL AB. "With Larry on board, we can now more fully support our growing U.S. corporate customer base with commercial licenses and MySQL AB's wide range of services."

"The MySQL AB team is a group of true software experts who are passionately and selflessly committed to the open source philosophy, to the expanding open source community, and to the continued refinement of the MySQL database server," commented Mr. Stefonic. "I'm honored to be a part of this group, and look forward to increasing the company's visibility in the U.S."

MySQL is the most popular open source database server in the world, with an estimated three million installations worldwide powering websites, data warehouses, business applications and logging systems. Through extensive re-use of pieces of code within the software and a streamlined, but functionally-rich, feature set, the MySQL database management system is unmatched in speed, reliability, power and ease of deployment.

Commercial Licenses: And Open Source Profitability Model

From its inception, MySQL AB has supported and promoted the open source philosophy that people should be able to freely read, redistribute, and modify source code to promote rapid improvement and evolution of the software. To support this approach, the company has established a model for profitability and growth that leverages the company's full ownership of the MySQL name and trademark, as well as its deep expertise with the MySQL code. While the MySQL database server is available at no cost to everyone under the standard open-source GNU General Public License (GPL), MySQL AB offers non-GPL commercial licenses to organizations that want to develop and re-sell a commercial product containing MySQL code. MySQL AB also provides its customers with a range of support, consulting and training services, in which the company's founders, Monty Widenius and David Axmark, have hands-on involvement. MySQL AB also offers a partnership program.

For more information on purchasing a commercial MySQL license or a MySQL services and support package, or on becoming a MySQL corporate partner, please contact Larry Stefonic at 1-425-743-5635 or at larry@mysql.com.

About MySQL

MySQL AB develops, markets and supports the MySQL database server, the world's most popular open source database. The MySQL database, which is free and available to everyone, has over three million users, including major corporations such as Yahoo!, MP3.com (Vivendi Universal), Motorola, NASA, Silicon Graphics, HP, Xerox, Cisco and Texas Instruments. It is available under the open-source GNU General Public License (GPL) or a non-GPL commercial license. MySQL AB is headquartered in Uppsala, Sweden, but is a true virtual company, with employees throughout the world. For more information about MySQL, please go to www.MYSQL.com.

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MySQL is a trademark of MySQL AB in the USA and other countries. Other products mentioned are the trademarks of their respective corporations.