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Visionary Keynote Speakers Announced for MySQL Conference & Expo 2008

Press release: March 19, 2008

Sun's Jonathan Schwartz and MySQL's Marten Mickos to Kick Off the World’s Largest Open Source Database Event

Sebastopol, CA -- February 21, 2008 -- The sixth annual MySQL Conference & Expo, co-presented by MySQL AB and O'Reilly Media, is expected to bring together 2,000 open source and database users from some of the most exciting and fastest-growing companies in the world, as well as from the large and active MySQL community. The conference will take place April 14-17, 2008, in Santa Clara, California.

To register and learn about early registration discounts, please visit http://mysqlconf.com.

MySQL AB CEO Marten Mickos and Jonathan Schwartz, president and CEO of Sun Microsystems, will kick off the conference with keynotes highlighting the strategic, technical and community synergies between the two companies and their pending merger. Mickos' annual "State of the Dolphin" address is always thought-provoking for corporate customers, open source developers and MySQL ecosystem partners alike. Schwartz will be speaking on "Open Source: The Heart of the Network Economy" -- how free software and open communities like MySQL are the lifeblood of network innovation. Tuesday's other keynote will be Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon.com, who will speak about distributed computing in the modern Internet era.

Additional conference keynotes include:

  • Jacek Becla, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, "The Science and Fiction of Petascale Analytics" Scientists are trying to understand dark matter, discover distant galaxies, hunt for the Higgs boson, detect asteroids, and take movies of molecules. Their science is fascinating, but their analysis requirements may seem like science fiction. Few have experienced the reality of petascale analytics so far, but everybody will face it tomorrow. Are we ready?

  • Rick Falkvinge, Swedish Pirate Party, "Copyright Regime vs. Civil Liberties" Falkvinge will discuss the rise and success of pirates and why pirates are necessary in today's politics. He'll also outline the next steps in the pirates' strategy to change global copyright laws.

  • Dick Hardt, Sxip, "Who is the Dick on My Site?" Much of the data in a database is about people. Identity 2.0 technologies will lower the friction for people to provide and easily move data about themselves online. This fast paced keynote will offer a background on Identity 2.0, discuss current roadblocks and future opportunities, and explore the potential impacts these will have on databases.

Other keynote presenters on the agenda include Raj Cherabuddi of Silicon Query and Chander Kant from Zmanda.

The additional 100-plus conference sessions and tutorials will be geared toward a variety of skill levels and company size, all designed to help attendees rapidly build scalable online database applications with MySQL. The four full days of keynotes, sessions, tutorials, and social networking events will allow participants to learn and share MySQL database knowledge in a relaxed, enthusiastic atmosphere.

Attendees can also expect a world-class Expo Hall, featuring dozens of the latest database tools, products, and services from conference sponsors and exhibitors -- including: Zmanda, Silicon Query, Continuent, Jaspersoft, Sun Microsystems, XAware, DataDirect, Dolphin Interconnect Solutions, HP Invent, Infobright, Linagora, Microsoft, OpSource, Oracle/Innobase, Pentaho, R1Soft, Ticketmaster, XAMPP, Apache Friends, Entrance, Etelos, Facebook, Google, Kirix, Melissa Data, Memcached, MindTouch, mojoPortal, O'Reilly Media, OpenMRS, Phorum, phpMyAdmin, Talend, PHPWomen.org, ScaleDB, SilverStripe, Sphinx, Symfony Project, Talend, and Tokutek.

Learn more about the MySQL Conference & Expo 2008 by visiting: http://mysqlconf.com

If you'd like to stay up-to-date on information relating to the MySQL Conference & Expo 2008, sign up for the conference newsletter (login required): http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/nl/home#conferences

To apply for media credentials, visit: http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/public/content/media

If you have ideas about subjects you'd like to see added at the conference, send a note to: mysql-idea@oreilly.com

For information about exhibiting or sponsoring the MySQL Conference & Expo, contact Sharon Cordesse at (707) 827-7065 or scordesse@oreilly.com.

Watch keynote presentations from the 2007 MySQL Conference & Expo by visiting: http://mysqlconf.blip.tv

For information on media & promotional partnerships at MySQL Conference & Expo, contact Avila Reese at (707) 827-7116 or mediapartners@oreilly.com

About MySQL
MySQL AB develops and supports a family of high-performance, affordable database products. The company's flagship offering is 'MySQL Enterprise,' a comprehensive set of production-tested software, proactive monitoring tools, and premium support services.

MySQL is the world's most popular open source database software. Many of the world's largest and fastest-growing organizations use MySQL to save time and money powering their high-volume Web sites, business-critical systems and packaged software -- including industry leaders such as Yahoo!, Alcatel-Lucent, Google, Nokia, YouTube and Zappos.com.

With headquarters in the United States and Sweden -- and operations around the world -- MySQL AB supports both open source values and corporate customers' needs. For more information about MySQL, please visit www.mysql.com.

"MySQL" and "MySQL Enterprise" are registered trademarks of MySQL AB in the European Union, USA and other countries. O'Reilly is a registered trademark of O'Reilly Media, Inc. Other products or companies mentioned may be trademarks or tradenames of their respective owners.

About O’Reilly

O’Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O’Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying “faint signals” from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.

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