The Wall Street Journal is reporting that IBM is in talks with Sun that could result in an all-out purchase - possibly as soon as this week. Sun, seen as a hardware company by WSJ, could be a good fit for IBM since opening its go-to-market strategy from proprietary to commodity hardware. IBM, the middle-ware titan, is famous for turning otherwise commodity wares into cash flow.
Likewise, both IBM and Sun are open source supporters with proven records of cooperation within the community. Embedding Java and SunStorage into IBM's arsenal could prove an effective strategy for Big Blue as systems migrate to the cloud and away from Microsoft's control.
SOLORI's take: IBM and Sun could be a very good thing with lots of valuable resources trickling to the open source community and SMB space.
See the entire WSJ article here.
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In short, I agree. To be a little bit harsh, IBM tends to sell 'service ware' meaning software that requires customization and integration in order to meet the particular needs of enterprises. Sun has a broad portfolio of technologies that similarly lack ease of use and the final 20% of productization to be useful to the mass market. This is where IBM Global Services comes in....
ReplyDeleteI hope IBM keeps most if not all of Sun's R&D going.