All Sun got for their $1Bn was the domain name mysql.com...
MySQL's battle for the last decade has mostly been getting enough brand recognition that corporate environments consider it a serious, practical alternative. The brand IS the value of MySQL: it is a promise that the technology has been worked on by serious people, and will continue to be patched and improved for the forseeable future (however realistic that promise turns out to be).
Starting again with a new brand is possible, but by definition it would be a new company which would have to prove its chops and its longevity all over again.
Losing the MySQL brand would be a serious setback to MySQL adoption in corporate environments, and thereby a setback to the amount of money that gets invested in improving it. It is in the interests of all users of MySQL that the brand remain trusted.
Losing the mysql brand would mean less than nothing, in the corporate world a brand has value in the open source world the name changes and everybody moves on.
See joomla vs mambo and a ton of other examples.
The only person that really seems to have a problem with this is Monty himself since he can't let go of his baby even after selling it down the river. Which plenty of people spoke up about when he sold it to SUN in the first place.
All those people have quit Sun and work for Monty now...
Which kind of bothers me because I really like Sun hardware. Every blunder Sun makes pushed SPARC closer to extinction.
I hope Oracle keeps making the Type 7 keyboards with Control where God wanted it to be. That's not too much to ask...
I don't know of anything that embeds a relational database that has the requirements of a MySQL.
Supposing he actually is being Machiavellian, he wants MySQL not to be so strong a competitor for the middle and high end of commercial installations. He can afford to concede the very low end - Oracle doesn't play there, except perhaps with BDB (a minor sideline).
Sun's storage products are top notch but I doubt Oracle specifically wanted to move into the field. Selling replacement SPARCs to the banks that still have Solaris won't last long, Oracle know that.
They specifically cited Java and hardware in the acquisition announcement, and I have a really hard time seeing the strategic value of the MySQL asset. Oracle has much more to gain from a "come to us when you're ready to sit at the grown-ups table" position.
1: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/09/29/oracle-scolded-by-ind...
(Agree though - Oracle would want to keep mysql)