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Oracle Buys Sun - Your Thoughts?

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Ehtyar:
Hi all.

Many of you have likely already heard that Oracle's offer to buy Sun Microsystems for US$7.4 billion ($9.50 a share) has been accepted by Sun. IBM was the original contender, but negotiations fell though shortly before Oracle got serious in the race.

Many saw the acquisition of Sun by IBM as a negative, citing IBMs somewhat colorful history with open source projects, speaking specifically to concerns about how IBM might handle Java and MySQL.

Let us know what you think.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/20/oracle-to-buy-sun-hold-on-to-your-hats/
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/839/1051839/oracle-buys-sun-usd7-billion
http://www.databasejournal.com/news/article.php/3816231/Oracle-Buys-Sun-in-IBMs-Wake.htm
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/20/128246
http://www.osnews.com/story/21338/Oracle_Buys_Sun_Microsystems
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090420/ap_on_bi_ge/oracle_sun

Ehtyar.

40hz:
I find the whole thing vaguely reminiscent of two aging (but still attractive) movie stars hooking up in their late 60's for one last "film & fling" before they become fond memories.

C'mon Sophia, let's show them damn young uns' we both still have what it takes! ;)

My predictions:


* Prepare to see OracleDB make its debut as an Oracle-branded server appliance.


* Prepare to see MySQL development either spun off to a new company, sold back to the original authors, or 'given back' to the general public (i.e. abandoned).


* Strong chance of future MySQL development forking (depending on how the above gets handled)




BTW: IMHO Sophia Loren does still 'have what it takes.' ;)

Ehtyar:
ROFL. Awesome metaphor 40hz.

MySQL is pretty up in the air right now I think. Oracle could do just about anything they wanted with it, some paths making more sense than others.

Databases as several appliances I agree is pretty much a given, and I'd expect Oracle to be looking into other types of appliance to maximize the return on at least the hardware of the Sun buyout.

Not sure what to say about SPARC as a platform, it will be interesting to see what Oracle does with Fujitsu on that front.

Something few people seem to be discussing is OpenOffice. Sun has copped a lot of flack over the years for the way they handled StarOffice/OpenOffice. I suppose OpenOffice, Java, and MySQL all face similar potential fates.

Any thoughts on OpenSolaris anyone?

Ehtyar.

Lashiec:
This perspective over what future will bring to Sun open source projects sums up things pretty nicely, I think. It did not seem as a good idea to me when I first heard about it, but seems like Oracle is far more involved with OSS than I thought, something that sets a new light over the deal, and means that the most important assets of Sun are safe for now.

I'm kinda worried about the most consumer-oriented products, OpenOffice and VirtualBox. IBM takeover was good news for OpenOffice, because the project really needed a shakeup in the management to end up with many of its shortcoming and idiosincrasies, and IBM involvement in it made it a good candidate for that shakeup, but with Oracle I'm not so sure. I don't know if Oracle will even consider to go forward with it. This, coupled with the resentment towards Sun iron fist ruling over the suite, probably will end up in the creation of an OpenOffice Foundation, which has been discussed several times at OOoCons.

VirtualBox is a real enigma. The package never was meant to compete with heavyweights like VMware, so it's not exactly easy to monetize in its current state. To do that, Oracle would have to devote quite some resources for it, and even then it would take some time to catch up the big names, so maybe they won't even bother.

Edvard:
I tried OpenSolaris because I do things like that, but I didn't quite get the hang of it.
It may be a proper Unix in the species sense, but that makes it almost, but not entirely, quite unlike Linux (my first love).
From what I've heard around the 'net, the system is quite nice, but I couldn't do anything advanced with it. Not that it couldn't, I was just unfamiliar with the toolset.

That being said, I have no idea what Oracle plans to do, but I seriously don't think they have what it takes to pitch for OpenSolaris in the already chaotic Desktop arena. I think it might be worth their while to re-tool Sparc with a heavy dose of R&D, hopefully resulting in a premier platform upon which they can then push OpenSolaris as the workstation/server brains. That bundled with VirtualBox might make for a mighty platform indeed.

As far as OpenOffice is concerned, there's too much momentum behind it to stop now. Oracle will either embrace it as a precious connection with the OSS community or they'll let it off the Sun leash so they can concentrate on other things. Same with MySQL.

Then again, it's entirely possible that I am completely clueless
 :two:

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