Posted on 04/03/2009 8:52:13 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
ARMONK, N.Y., Apr 3, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- U.S. technical giant IBM is close to an agreement to acquire rival Sun Microsystems for close to $7 billion, sources said.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Maybe JAVA finally gets useful for us consumers.
Earlier today they had it at $9.55/share..
Maybe this will cause Sun to stop making everything open source and start to try to make a profit on their products.
IBM Near Deal to Buy Sun for Lower Price
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In return, Sun is demanding assurances that IBM will push to complete a deal even if it faces vigorous regulatory objections ...
I don’t think they have made everything opensource.
I know, just a snarky comment about their CEO who had this obsession with it.
In my line of work (satellite operations) my program actually uses Sun workstations for one control system ... but the application would have been much better if it had been hosted on a mainframe. And we use PCs for another control system, with no particular difficulty.
The biggest issue (IMO) is that Sun workstations are really expensive, without the huge leap in capability that would seem to justify the cost.
Oh no! Does this mean that Open Office is going to be replaced by Lotus Symphony?
That would be a bad thing.
Sun's strategy with Java was always foolish. Java commoditizes both the operating system and the hardware. But Sun's bread and butter was proprietary unix on proprietary hardware.
Report: No deal yet, but Sun agrees to lower share price from IBM
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One industry group has already raised concerns that buying Sun would give IBM a dominant position in segments of the computer server and storage markets. That could prompt regulators to give the deal closer scrutiny or impose conditions for approval.
It means everyone at Sun will be fired and the work sent to India. This is what IBM does now. (IndiansBrazilliansManchurians)
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Neither Sun nor IBM will confirm that the two companies are even in talks, but the two will reportedly announce their merger on Monday–not today, as previously thought. That’s the word from Bloomberg, which confirms claims that IBM (IBM) intends to pay between $9 and $10 a share for Sun (JAVA). The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, pegs the price at $9.55 per share, or about $7 billion. At that price, the acquisition will be the largest in IBM’s history, surpassing even its $5 billion purchase of Cognos in 2007.
And after the deal, then what? Massive layoffs, most likely. Analysts say redundancies between the two companies’ businesses could cause IBM to sack as much as a third of Sun’s employees in one of those “resource actions” it’s so fond of. “This deal is definitely going to lead to a lot of combined layoffs,” Forrester Research analyst James Staten told Forbes. “And it wouldn’t be a surprise if most of that bloodletting happened on the Sun side.”
IBM And Sun: There Will Be Blood
With significant overlaps in the companies' businesses, a merger could trigger as many as 10,000 layoffs.
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The deal may be about servers, but the timing's about Cisco.
Yeah, because nobody ever made a profit on Open Source!
The problem isn't Sun making things open source, the problem is Sun management not being smart enough to make money.
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