It was announced on April 20, 2009 that Oracle has plans to snap up Sun Microsystems pending Sun stockholder and other regulatory approvals. Indications are that both companies will continue to operate independently in a business as usual mode. Over the years I have heard this song before with the acquisition of Lotus by IBM, Wang software by Kodak, Documentum by EMC and many others. Overtime, we find that resistance to change is futile and eventually they become one flying the same flag or it does not work and the acquired either die off or are cut loose and sold off.
In this case, I think it will make life interesting all around as Oracle will now be able to expand into the realm of one stop shop for all elements of enterprise computing, not to mention the impact it will have on Java in both advancing and protecting it, but can Oracle truly let Sun do what it needs to do and support it financially and if not do they have the ability to run a company like Sun effectively?
No matter what happens, if this goes through as planned, I think our industry will see some interesting scenarios unfold in development and the marketplace for one stop solutions. Of course there are those who feel placing trust in a single vendor is not always best and will still look for options. Which are you?
What thoughts do you have about this pending deal and the impact it may or may not have in our space? I look forward to hearing from you.
Bob Larrivee - AIIM
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