Updated on 04/07/2009

Talk rumored in 1998 and surfaced once again in 2002 will continue – IBM was in final talks to acquire Sun… It was suspected that some news would be announced by Monday 04/06/2009

http://www.betanews.com/article/IBMs-acquisition-of-Sun-Down-to-the-details/1238698365
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/technology/business-computing/03blue.html

and they did – it fell apart… offer has been rejected

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aijKk7Ur2M0c&refer=news

Will we see negotiation saga continued or would be there another bidder? Or…

In rumors of Sun’s CEO could be replaced, so memorable statement was issued: “As a policy Sun does not comment on rumors or speculation. What we can say is that Sun is committed to its leadership team, growth strategy and building value for its shareholders”. Yahoo anyone?

It is not doom and gloom for Sun, but it all went against market expectations… and what is in there for IBM really?

  • Cannot overrun a competitor, buy it
  • No more patent wars over Java -> IBM JDK to consume final parts of Sun JDK
  • Java push via existing customer base
  • Solaris to replace AIX? Is there market left for Solaris? IBM will keep the goodies and Solaris to go away?
  • NetBeans or Eclipse? Rational or Sun Studio? -> Eclipse+Rational with NetBeans flavor?
  • + IBM JavaFX
  • + IBM X86 virtualization

All good and nice, but remember the Lotus story? Died silently… what would follow? Java? mySQL? New Google DB engine to emerge built by ex Sun employees? Another era of mainframe computers with Java only present on enterprise level?

I am not pro-Java person, but this is the milestone not to miss!


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