At the HP Business Intelligence meeting today, a journalist colleague mentioned that MySQL and IBM are about to announce a reselling deal. I don't have any more details than that, especially if it involves only Big Blue' services arm and/or other parts of the company. But if the news materialises (MySQL is hosting its developer conference in Santa Clara this week), it surely is an interesting development. Stay tune for more.

(Update) The deal was announced today Wednesday... but remember, you heard of it here first ;-)

In case, you are interested, here's an excerpt of the press release:

MySQL Conference & Expo 2007, Santa Clara, Calif. -- April 25, 2007 -- MySQL AB and IBM today announced a joint technology and reseller agreement to bring support for the MySQL open source database to the IBM System i business computing platform.

The two companies will work together to offer the MySQL Server for i5/OS, the flagship operating system for System i, and plan to deliver DB2 for i5/OS as a certified MySQL storage engine on the System i platform. This will allow System i customers to implement online and transactional MySQL applications while storing all data in a single, easy-to-manage DB2 database.

In addition, MySQL Enterprise subscriptions -- a comprehensive offering of MySQL database software, services and support -- will be made available to IBM clients worldwide through IBM’s reseller network and System i sales team. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

“IBM continues to innovate the System i platform with new investments in cutting-edge, open-source solutions. Today’s news will make thousands of open source MySQL and PHP applications available to System i clients, helping them respond more quickly to business needs as they arise,” said Mark Shearer, general manager IBM System i. “In addition, our customers will not only be able to deploy these applications with the support of IBM and MySQL, but -- thanks to the planned integration with our DB2 database storage engine for MySQL -- customers will continue to benefit from the integration and simplicity that System i consistently delivers.”

“We are very pleased to work with IBM to bring two large, active hardware and software communities together around System i and MySQL,” said Marten Mickos, MySQL AB’s CEO. “As an IBM Business Partner, we hope this will open up an exciting new generation of online applications to take advantage of all the corporate data stored on one of the most reliable and secure platforms in the IT industry.”

IBM becomes a member of the MySQL Certified Storage Engine Program (http://www.mysql.com/engines). With the planned DB2 storage engine for MySQL, System i customers will be able to run MySQL applications while continuing to manage their DB2 for i5/OS databases. It will plug into the MySQL Server and be managed as any other storage engine within the database server. The DB2 storage engine will provide superior storage management, transaction support, and database management for MySQL developers and DBAs -- and enable sharing of data between MySQL and DB2 applications.