Record Sales, New Financing Fuel Growth at MySQL

UPPSALA, Sweden - (April 22, 2002) - MySQL AB, developer of the world's most popular open source database, today announced that it is experiencing unprecedented growth, as first quarter sales of the MySQL database came in at 53 percent over projections. The company also disclosed that it has recently received an infusion of financing from its European investors, led by ABN AMRO Alfred Berg Industrifinans, a respected Scandinavian investment group and part of the ABN AMRO Bank Group.

MySQL AB is directing its growing resources to support product development and expanded worldwide commercial sales of its database. As evidence of the company's increased momentum, traffic at MySQL's web site (www.mysql.com) has grown 50 percent in the last six months. The company has also doubled in size in the past year, attracting employees from 14 countries across the globe, including a fully-staffed U.S.-based sales force.

"Our success is valid proof that open source software can be the foundation of a profitable, growing business," said Marten Mickos, MySQL AB CEO. "Our two groups of users - commercial and those that use MySQL under the free GPL license - fully support each other to create a solid business model that upholds the open source philosophy. We are thrilled about what our success means not only for MySQL, but for the open source community in general."

Dual Licensing Key to MySQL Business

The MySQL database maximizes speed and power in an extremely compact design, and it has full transactional capabilities to support business critical applications. From its inception, MySQL AB has passionately 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. MySQL now has over three million installations worldwide.

MySQL AB employs a dual-licensing structure that allows it to support its loyal user community with a sustainable business model. The MySQL database is available at no cost under the open source GPL license, and the company also provides commercial, non-GPL licenses to organizations that plan to re-sell a product containing MySQL code, or that otherwise don't want to be bound by the GPL. With the availability of the commercial license option, leading companies are now embedding the high-performance MySQL database into major software, hardware and other electronic devices.

Blue World Communications, a company renowned for its easy-to-use and powerful software for building data-driven Web sites, has integrated the MySQL database server into its new Lasso Professional 5 product, a powerful Web application server designed for high-end Web developers. The MySQL database bundled with Lasso Professional 5 is called Lasso MySQL, and it will provide Lasso developers with a powerful SQL database server.

"Lasso customers have asked for tighter integration between Lasso and high-performance SQL databases," said Bill Doerrfeld, CEO of Blue World. "We chose the open source MySQL database primarily because of its great reputation, high-performance and ease-of-use - features that are hallmarks of the Lasso product line."

MySQL AB owns all rights to the MySQL server source code, the MySQL trademark and the mysql.com domain worldwide. The company's unique model for profitability and growth leverages its full ownership of the MySQL name and trademark, as well as its established user base and its deep expertise in the MySQL code. MySQL AB also provides its customers with a range of support, consulting and training services, as well as a MySQL partnership program.

For more information about a MySQL commercial license, please email sales@mysql.com or contact Larry Stefonic, MySQL vice president of sales, at U.S. (425) 743-5635.

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!, Lucent Technologies, MP3.com (Vivendi Universal), Motorola, NASA, Silicon Graphics, HP, Xerox, Cisco and Agilent. It is available under the open-source GNU General Public License (GPL) or a non-GPL commercial license. MySQL 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 registered trademark of MySQL AB in Sweden and is a trademark of MySQL AB in the USA and other countries. Other products mentioned are the trademarks of their respective corporations.