Under Sun Microsystems, MySQL development "was a little stagnant," says Rocky Appiah, vice president of technology at in New York City, a heavy user of MySQL. But when asked if MySQL will improve under Oracle, Epic Advertising CIO Rick Okin says, "Ask us that after they've actually owned it for a while."

Oracle's ownership of MySQL has raised concerns because the company's primary business model hinges on a database that is not open source and competes against MySQL. MySQL creator Michael "Monty" Widenius even launched a to "save" the open source database from Oracle.

Oracle's acquisition of Sun was ultimately approved by regulatory officials after the company made intended to assure MySQL users that Oracle will improve the database and encourage open source community involvement, without implementing restrictive licenses.

Oracle's chief MySQL official, Edward Screven, is expected to provide more regarding Oracle's plans to enhance the technology on Tuesday at the O'Reilly MySQL Conference & Expo in Santa Clara, Calif.