Why would HP need to, other than to deny it to IBM? HP has just about everything but the bragging rights of claiming that they own Java.
I don’t understand why IBM would be wanting to take on Sun either, and for the same reason. SPARC isn’t needed by either company. Workstations can now be powered with Core x86 chipsets quite nicely.
This change in the industry has been a long time coming. Sooner or later, all these players had to know that cisco was going to venture out of the twisted pair and onto the desktop. Whenever I’d suggest doing this sort of thing 10 years ago at cisco, I was told “not yet” — not “no, that’s not what we do...” — so this has been coming for awhile.
And as for which outfit to take over Sun: If I had to choose one or the other, I’d have to come down on IBM’s side. Carly destroyed HP - they’re nothing but a PeeCee box maker now. Prior to Fiorina wrecking HP, I’d have said that HP taking over Sun or SGI would have been a natural fit. Not now.
I’m thinking it has to do with Java. IBM has been going after MS with Linux support. I think OpenSolaris and Java are prime factors in this deal.