Recent MySQL Trends

In working with customers every week I am seeing some trends that I would like to share with everyone.

1. There is a tremendous upswing in Oracle customers looking at MySQL. A year ago about half the customers were evaluating MySQL, now I am seeing about 90% saying they have been mandated to look at using MySQL for future DBA projects.
2. Must stronger acceptance by the traditional Oracle DBA as to the features and benefits of MySQL.
3. A large number of customers new to MySQL are not very knowledgeable about the environments surrounding MySQL database servers. Mention words like Memcache, InfoBright, KickFire and most customers are not sure what they are.
4. Customers are still using a wide variety of tools to monitor and manage MySQL database servers. However, I do see an upswing on customers looking at the MySQL Enterprise Monitor.
5. Too many customers underestimate the need to get their administration teams trained on performance tuning and advanced database features. MySQL is a database server that needs to be tuned and managed correctly just like any other database server. Too many customers think all they have to do is install it and they are done.
6. There is a lot of interest in MySQL version 6 with the new optimizations, storage engines and availability features.
7. Too many customers are not sure on whether to use Ruby, Groovy, Java, .NET, PHP, etc. I am constantly surprised on how customers are still trying to figure out the best tools to use for development for specific projects. Maybe this will never change.
8. More and more web developers do not understand how to write good database code. This leads to big performance issues down the road when database usage begins to go up.
9. Web developers are almost never using database vendor specific features. They want databases that are fast, easily deployable and easy to work with.
10. From my perspective in working with customers, MySQL is growing at the fastest rate I've seen in the last few years. Is their any area of technology that is growing faster than MySQL?