What we're doing with InnoDB

So most you probably know that I own InnoDB, the leading transactional storage engine for MySQL. Its kind of been one of those riding-the-fence companies -- it doesn't really have balls, and it could go either way. But the numbers came in a couple weeks ago, and let me tell you -- InnoDB is kicking ass and killing the competition. Who knew? Unfortunately, it really hadn't done much else except sit there like a lame duck. We just couldn't figure out how to make money off it. Oh sure, MySQL AB pays us a little to continue development, and we sell some of those commercial licenses, but that was about it. And it wasn't enough -- not nearly enough.

The question was this: What the hell are we going to do with InnoDB? How do we make money with it, and how can we use it to destroy MySQL?

So we had an Oracle powwow a couple weeks ago to brainstorm. Safra sent out the memo to our best and brightest, and everybody brought their portable white boards and yoga mats. I told them what we were doing, and I asked them to sit on the floor for a while and doodle imaginary creatures and whatnot until they had their big epiphany. You know. We were talking about the great vision that would restore balance and harmony to InnoDB. So they did that, and let me tell you, these people came up with some amazing ideas. One dude suggested that we configure InnoDB to drop all of MySQL's tables at random. That was the idea I voted for. Another guy said that we should pre-load InnoDB with porn that would pop-up on everybody's web application.

But the winning idea was ingenious. Just amazing. Basically, it said that we need to start benchmarking InnoDB to perform exactly 5% slower than our 11g release. And when our salesmen really need to bring home the bacon, they can type in a secret MySQL command to make InnoDB perform 15% slower than 11g.

We've already implemented this. As in, the new InnoDB version with this feature is shipping right now. It's a win-win for us, because let's face it -- who's going to want a slow-ass database like this? Nobody, that's who. Everybody's going to come to us. They have nowhere else to go.

You should have seen this customer who was here this morning. One of my guys was trying to close a deal, and he set up MySQL to run really slow. I mean, really slow. The thing was just dragging ass. And the customer was like, oh wow. Gee. I had no idea MySQL blew goats like this. He really said that, and he sat there scratching his head for like five minutes. No joke. I was just sitting there trying not to laugh. Because Mickos is truly fucked now. Seriously.