Carl Tyler's Blog

1 - It´s a pity. It w´d have been a good strategic constellation for both IBM and Sun. Interessting times for IBM´s Java strategy and: for IBM business partners.

2 - IBM blew it. Now software that they and the rest of us lies in the hands of a major competitor. Would have been great for IBM, IBM's business partners and customers. Now, who knows... A big blow.

3 - This will take time to digest and it's probably crazy of me to offer an opinion so early but I reckon it's really a bit of a mixed bag.

While IBM was in the running I felt sure Solaris and the Sun hardware may not have had much of a future (which might have made the effort of an antitrust review appear somewhat uninspiring to IBM) and that IBM wanted control of Java and access to Sun's hardware customers (and maybe OpenOffice too). Clearly there was also the potential to squeeze Oracle through DB2 on Sun's. Even when IBM dropped out I felt sure they were going to back to the table.

Looks a wee bit like IBM's play was defensive rather than a clearly motivated commitment to offense and instead of expanding its server and database business IBM now has a potential competitor in the vertical integration space - and it doesn't have Sun's software either. IBM might yet pay a higher price than they were prepared to pay for Sun on that account.

That said, Oracle doesn't have anything like IBM Global Services with which to mount such a challenge and they've just paid a lot of money to acquire (among other things) software that is ostensibly free. Furthermore, Sun's hardware sales have been struggling for some time and it's not apparent how the Oracle deal will change that.

I can't see what Oracle will do with MySQL except divest itself of it or more likely position it against SQL Server - which could be bad news for Microsoft - but I can see it doing a lot with Java even although Oracle isn't exactly synonymous with Open Source. On that basis I'm not too bothered about Oracle owning Java rather than IBM. Then again, I'm a lonely Notes developer in an Oracle shop and the future I envisaged prior to the Oracle Sun announcement now seems somewhat more constrained than it did. At this juncture I'm probably more concerned about the future of OpenOffice vis a vis IBM Lotus Symphony.

IBM to buy or merge with Microsoft, anyone? Or how about a hostile bid for Sun?

4 - Based on revenues the MySQL business is a dwarf. IBM so much depends on Java that they probably have to wait what Oracle does anyway. I am more sceptical about Suns hardware / chip business.