There is an interesting read over at:
http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=004000ECV0VO

It would seem MySQL is thinking about its marketing too. Remeber that
the press is seeded with stories like this; it is not coincedence.
The good thing is that I think we can win the argument, provided we
put enough resource into getting the message out.

The journalist summarises the new positioning as "Clutter Free"

The key benefits are summarised as: "It is likely that MySQL will
continue to capitalize on its main strengths, which are
affordability, ease of use and lack of extraneous features."

"Affordable" is the positive twist on "not free"
"Lack of extraneous features" is the positive twist on "not capable"

"There is lots of room in the database industry for different
solutions," said MySQL vice president Zack Urlock. "What we aim for
is the mainstream market, with companies looking for a high-
performance database."

Okay, so it is not "speed, speed, speed, reliability is second"
anymore. They have now become a Firebird wanna-be. Actually, that is
a theme to remember: "MySQL is a Firebird wanna-be"

"The company is especially keen on pointing toward products from
Oracle, Microsoft and IBM and noting how much is included for
customers, but ultimately not used."

"There's a lot of feature bloat," said Urlock. "It adds complexity
and slows down performance. Our goal is 90 percent functionality at
10 percent of the cost of other options, and I think we've achieved
that."

Okay, so they do 90% at 10% of the cost. Roman already gave an answer
to that: "If airplanes were built the way Firebird is, your own plane
would fit in your pocket and could transport your office building to
anywhere you like. And for free."

Paul