The purchase of Sun by Oracle for $7.4 billion has far less industry buzz and excitement than the rumored acquisition of Sun by IBM.
IBM stole the thunder and the impending acquisition of Sun became an imminent and expected event. While hardware overlap existed in the IBM deal, IBM would have provided a much needed home for Sun’s software assets. Software giant Oracle lacks a hardware portfolio, so the key Oracle / Sun overlaps are far fewer except for the $1 billion acquisition of MySQL by Sun in 2008. Given Oracle’s tendency to be proprietary in its markets, ownership of MySQL by Oracle would be perceived as a great risk in the open source community. (Register or Login to Read More)
The publication of the Open Cloud Manifesto is positive. The Cloud, driven by virtualization, is surfacing at the right time in the market and can advance computing in this generation.
The concept of “openness” is necessary for innovation to thrive. Publishing an open view with multiple and varied participants is an example of global lifecycle transformation where organizations work together across boundaries.
IBM, one of the key supporters of the Open Cloud Manifesto, has a long history of advancing collaboration around new technologies. In the 90’s, IBM attempted collaboration by creating consortium style companies such as Taligent and Kaleida. In the early part of this century, IBM was the leader of what has transformed in to Eclipse.org. This appears to be IBM’s attempt to get agreement on the Cloud at various levels.
It is clear that each organization in support of the Open Cloud Manifesto has an agenda based upon the Cloud. Agreement and discussion among a critical mass is a positive step to advancing Cloud technology.
The purchase of Sun Microsystems by IBM would be a win for IBM.
Sun has been in a holding pattern since the dot com implosion. And, while Sun positioned themselves as “the dot in the dot com”, that was the last innovation we have seen come from Sun.
Sun, while it once had very competitive hardware, had no idea how to productize and implement effective software products. Sun works on the assumption that all software must lead to Sun server sales – definitely a flawed idea that was proven wrong numerous times. Sun also was never able to quite grasp the idea of high volume and low margin sales. Sun continued on in its technology efforts like it was 1988.
IBM has clearly demonstrated that it is more than capable of:
IBM has also managed many acquisitions and always seems to find something in an acquisition worthy of continuing on with the IBM brand.
The potential of a Sun acquisition by IBM makes sense. IBM is a world class business organization and will be able to make business sense out of Sun’s academic assets.
We started the year with the New England Patriots posting an undefeated regular season record of 16 – 0. It appeared to be conclusive; the Patriots would win the Super Bowl – not so fast – the wild card New York Giants made an unpredictable and disruptive move by narrowly defeating the favored Patriots. It was inevitable that the Patriots lose at some point in the season, it just happened to be the last and most important game.
In July, the greatest sporting event, the Tour de France departed with no defending champion for the second consecutive year! Team Astana, with two of the three podium finishers of the 2007 race appeared to have very good odds of gaining one of the top three spots again. Surprise! Team Astana was banned and Team CSC with Carlos Sastre and company rode to an unpredictable and disruptive victory. It was inevitable that the Tour de France could not escape controversy.
Disruption and unpredictability seem to be the prevailing themes for 2008. In a year when radical and unexpected occurrences were commonplace, should technology be any different? Let’s take a look at the big issues that may have shocked us, but in reality, were inevitable...
