MySQL has introduced what it calls an all-you-can-eat one-year "Enterprise Unlimited" subscription to its database for $40,000.

The "unprecedented low price" looks like it's meant to dislodge existing site licenses for Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase, IBM DB2 and Oracle - especially Oracle.

MySQL says it's the cost of a single CPU of Oracle Enterprise, Oracle being its prime target because a third of Oracle's clientele use MySQL too and because there's been speculation that Oracle may try undercutting MySQL the way it's undercutting Red Hat.

Executive VP of product Zack Urlocker claims it wouldn't be such a bad thing if Oracle did that and would give open source more credibility and visibility.

At the same time he says that MySQL has been seeing more and more CIOs and CFOs making open source and MySQL part of an overall strategy to gain control over their software, which is why MySQL dreamed up its Enterprise Unlimited offer. He says it's not to get people to migrate off their legacy databases but to encourage them to look where they can use MySQL for the right application. Ah, positioning.

MySQL says its new pricing will let an organization develop, manage and support any number of MySQL applications.

The subscription, the equivalent of about a dozen MySQL servers under the company's old pricing, includes MySQL Enterprise Server software, Network Monitoring & Advisory Services that continuously monitors a site's database servers looking for problems, and gold-level support.

Meanwhile, MySQL, which, remember, wants to go public - this year, according to what CEO Marten Mickos has been saying - claims to have added 2,500 new customers last year, increasingly mainstream corporations, as well as its share of the Web 2.0 properties. It anticipates creating a telecom business unit this year to peddle its Cluster high-availability database.

And speaking of Oracle, it's put out a downloadable Management Pack for Unbreakable Linux users, based on Enterprise Manager 10g, that's supposed to give it comprehensive Linux server lifecycle management.

About that IPO - MySQL has raised $39 million in its lifetime and claims to have about $9 million in the bank left over from its C round early last year. Only one in a thousand MySQL users pays for the thing.