Sun Microsystems never quite recovered from the Tech Bust. Looking back, it seems that Sun's decline began on Apr. 20, 2000, when Network Solutions replaced a Sun machine with an IBM machine to run the "A Root" DNS name server.
If life were a novel with nice neat literary devices, Sun's losing its spot as the "dot in dot com" to IBM would clearly foreshadow IBM's takeover of Sun. However, we live here in the real world where things tend not to wrap up neatly.
Yesterday's news that IBM is in talks to buy Sun raises some serious questions for me. Oh, I'm not worried that IBM will ever really take over Sun (that might even be a good thing). I find it hard to believe that the SEC under President Obama's administration would allow further consolidation in hardware manufacturers. After all, the FDIC chief, Sheila Blair, spoke out today against allowing financial institutions to become "too big to fail". An idiot with a speech impediment could make an argument that both Sun and IBM are already critical to the economy.
What concerns me is the fact that Sun's executives are willing to talk to IBM at all. They've never exactly been friendly to one another. In fact, there has been some pretty bad blood between the two computing giants. I keep thinking that if Sun is courting IBM they must be running out of options. If the SEC disallows a merger with Big Blue, who is left that could possibly buy Sun? Microsoft? Not bloody likely. Computer Associates? What a horrible thought.
Sun, it's time to figure out how to make it on your own! You have a huge cult following, all you need to do is market it right. Green Computing is all the rage, for very good reasons, now is the time to jump to the front of the market and tout your low-energy-usage hardware, software, and services!
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2 comments:
Computer Associates is the Rainbow Bridge of software. If CA acquires Sun, Java will soon be relegated to the museum along with everything else we learned to use in the 90s.
CA: Where Software Goes To Die.
I think the only thing uncertain is where Java itself goes. The SEC is unlikely to let any of the other major businesses buy-up Sun as a whole, so there are really only two options. Sun goes piece-meal, in which case, my money is on IBM going for the Java IP. They already have an extensive investment in this space, so it just makes sense. Or, Sun needs to learn to survive as a business.
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