In a move that would certainly shake up the computer industry quite a bit, IBM is reportedly in talks with Sun Microsystems about the possibility of IBM acquiring Sun. Sun is going through hard times at the moment, and has been actively looking for someone to be acquired by.
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Member since:2008-10-23
I don't think they will kill it either. If they wanted to kill something they would kill AIX and replace it with Solaris. What would they win by buying something to kill it? Solaris is one of the best products out there. If they buy it and not leverage it in their offering, they are plain idiots who burn money for the sake of it. I don't think IBM executives are idiots, they probably know full well the value of Solaris. If they buy Sun, IBM will take the number one spot again and their offering won't be matched by any other corporation in the world, and they get that for very cheap since Sun is currently massively undervalued by the market.
In my opinion, that would be a Good Thing for IBM, a Good Thing for Sun and a Good Thing for the world.
Edited 2009-03-18 12:53 UTC
Member since:2009-01-25
Member since:2005-07-06
That's wishful thinking really. AIX is only around for historical reasons at IBM, and all of the new stuff is simply being put into Linux. There is really no sense at all in keeping Solaris going. It's very expensive to keep your own whole OS going these days without cost sharing, even for IBM and Sun.
IBM will do what Sun should have done years ago if this actually materialises - start progressively ditching Solaris, and AIX fully, and share the costs by using Linux. It's also what Novell should have done with Netware, but haven't, and they will go the same way.
Wishful thinking. IBM is not interested in acquiring technology that, quite frankly, isn't that brilliant and that people have been gradually moving from for the past ten years. They're only interested in acquiring a customer base for a knock-down price.
There is no value to Solaris and hasn't been for some time, other than cannibalising some code that might prove useful elsewhere. ZFS is the only thing that springs to mind really.
The reason why this is being talked about is because Sun have been stupid for the past ten years, won't change their ways and without a takeover they will go bankrupt in the not-too-distant future because their cost-base is too high and they can't fire any more people. I wouldn't paint this as a good thing for Sun at all. It's abject failure.
Member since:2006-01-03
Why to buy something to kill it? Very simple. To get their customer's base.
From my experience (and I *did* work for IBM), it will work probably like this. First, they would put all the development/enhancements of product X on hold. Next they offshore the support, so you would have to have rather painfull conversation with some cow from Bangalore when the feature XYZ does not work. Next they would offer you to replace already obsolete product X with their latest and the greatest product whatever.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-01-17
That is a nice dream world, IBM has only been drawn into the opensource movement kicking and screaming. IBM got into linux because some Opensource guys were porting Linux to zSystem hardware and to save face(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_on_zSeries history section), IBM did there own port and assisted the other two. IBM has donated some tidbits to the Linux word, and Apache, but IBM is nearly 50 year old software company and besides those two gifts and some press releases, its hard to prove they like OpenSource.
AIX, DB2 are both fairly stagnant a new version every decade and a few opensource packages are ported to AIX as demanded by paying customers.
IBM wants sun for its customers and Patents and some IP, IBM is not about opensource. Under IBM's loving hands all the opensource progress Sun has made will wither away. see my Blog http://uadmin.blogspot.com for more info.
Member since:
2005-11-05
I do hope that IBM (if they buy Sun) continues the great work that Sun has been doing with OpenSolaris. If they kill it there will be one very upset community.