MySQL AB Adds Veteran CFO to Growing Management Team

UPPSALA, Sweden - (December 4, 2001) - MySQL AB, developer of the world's most popular open source database, today announced that Hans von Bell has joined the company as chief financial officer (CFO). Mr. von Bell has become part of MySQL AB's growing executive team to help promote and manage increased worldwide sales and marketing of its leading open source database. MySQL AB also recently appointed Larry Stefonic as its first vice president of sales for the Americas (please see related press release, dated November 27, 2001).

Mr. von Bell is a veteran CFO and is well versed in the telecom and software businesses. Most recently, he served as CFO of Incirco AB in Sweden, where he had overall responsibility for finance, administration and human resources of the Incirco group of companies. Previously, Mr. von Bell was the regional financial controller of Metapath Software International (MSI), where he managed the financial planning and analysis for the entire European, Middle East and Africa region, with a turnover in excess of $100 million. He also served as the CFO for MSI Scandinavia. Prior to MSI, he held CFO and controller positions at Unisource Mobile and Telia International.

"Hans is a seasoned financial executive with extensive experience in building up operations in new countries," said Mårten Mickos, CEO at MySQL AB. "We are pleased that he has agreed to help us maintain a strong financial position as we continue to support the open source community."

MySQL AB, which was founded in 1995 and is privately-held, has been consistently profitable since 1996. The company recently closed a first round of funding with leading European early stage investors.

"MySQL AB is in an excellent position, with a huge customer base, proven technology, and a business model that successfully marries strong open source values with sustainable profitability," said Mr. von Bell. "I'm looking forward to working with the MySQL team to take the company to the next level."

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 the 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.

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.

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 corporation.