Posted on 08/23/2011 7:52:35 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In what would be Larry Ellison‘s crowning achievement if he could pull it off, the market is buzzing over the idea that Oracle could make a run at Hewlett-Packard.
This idea stems from a New York Post story Sunday, which asserts that the sell-off in the stock last week has “put the world’s largest tech company in a vulnerable position and may make it an Oracle takeover target.” The piece says that “one source close to the situation” thinks Ellison is ready to pounce, and that a deal is “inevitable” if HP’s share price keeps dropping.
The source told the Post that a takeover of HP becomes a lot easier if they complete a spin of the PC business, a part of the company Oracle likely would not want to own. The same source suggested an acquisition would likely be followed by the sale of the HP printer business.
There are a lot of delicious elements to the story, if it happens to be true – and I would note that this feels more like speculation and wishful thinking than true insider knowledge. A hostile Oracle bid for HP would pit Larry and his sidekick Mark Hurd, the former CEO of HP, against HP CEO – and former SAP co-CEO – Leo Apotheker, along with HP Chairman Ray Lane, who himself was once the #2 man at Oracle, and left when it became clear that Ellison had no plans to step down from the top job. Meanwhile, HP is furious with Oracle from its announcement earlier this year that it will no longer developer software for the Itanium server processor that HP had developed with Intel. These two companies do not like each other, and it is hard to imagine they could work out friendly terms.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
HP is essentially now a business services company, with their acquisition of EDS and now trying to acquire Autonomy. Acquiring HP gets Oracle into the game of business services, which they’ve been trying to do for a long time.
Me-no-get. Is there a "portfolio of patents," or something?
Dumping PC's is about the smartest thing they can do for themselves and for pc users.
If HP sells the printer business, there is not much left.
HP’s servers are the best in the industry, in my opinion. We’ve been using the ProLiant line for 20 years, and it’s a solid workhorse.
I wouldn’t spend a dime on anything from IBM. Their xSeries servers were a maintenance nightmare, and you could not PAY me to deploy a Dell server. They’re good doorstops though.
you answered my question before I asked it. see if you can shave a few milliseconds off that response time, though.
Then you still have to talk to the help desk.
They’ll ditch the printers if Oracle buys HP, they just want the services.
Full circle. After all these years Oracle will end up owning VMS.
lol. the database world is pretty arcane.
If they kill Websphere, that would be a great day.
HP shot itself in the foot by first announcing they thought PCs were not the wave of the future (as opposed to tablets,) and then announcing they wanted to sell their line of PCs...
I know a few guys who have done very well by WebSphere that would actually agree! Its amazing how a new “ear” get’s deployed one night and the next day, suddenly there is a problem with the “hardware” or “network” or anything else BUT the damn code that went out..
I’ve worked on them all and while I would rank Dell slightly above HP (at least in the servers of the last few years) the IMB x series was ugly. Which is unfortunate because IBMs power series is simply top notch.
RE: Full circle. After all these years Oracle will end up owning VMS.
Ahhh, the goold old VMS. Last I worked with it was 2008 in its latest incarnation away from the Alpha Chips and into the Itanium Processor ( it was then called OpenVMS ). This operating system gave me at least 5 years of bread and butter and put food on my family’s table ( ubtil I capitulated and went to develop for the evil Empire — Microsoft Windows ).
A great, reliable, robust, virtually unhackable operating system. Does it still have life in it? Or will it soon be relegated into the Computer Hall of Fame?
RE: Full circle. After all these years Oracle will end up owning VMS.
BTW, HP owns a whole host of other computer systems, including the TANDEM NON-STOP COMPUTER ( does anyone still remember this machine ?).
IBM’s great for big iron, but their server line is lacking in both aesthetics and practicality.
My biggest gripe about Dell is their rail system. How stupid do you have to be to create server rails that you have to lower the server into and click back? You get a big 4RU PowerEdge server weighing in at over 100 lb and it’s being racked at RU36 of a 44RU rack, and all of a sudden you’re hoisting a 100 lb piece of computer over your head to slide into rails. Dumb!
HP’s responsiveness is my biggest plus for them. Warranty response is admirable, and we have a well-stocked inventory of spare parts at a low cost of ownership. Their customer service may be overseas, but at least it’s well-integrated into ground-level service.
HP is big overseas in Europe and Asia/Pacific.
In my opinion, the “unthinkable” was when Oracle bought Sun.
I recall Tandem fondly b/c I worked w/ a TANDEM veteran [former mil vet too]. He knew his stuff and saved my hide during/after my divorce in the early 90s.
I was the Systematic’s [aka Altel] ATM guru and we tested/corrected their interface together. Altel would always give sub-par code but at least [or had to] they gave the COBOL source too.
I think he ‘s still doing Tandem ATM work w/ Wells Fargo while I’m still dinosaur ~ mf cobol, but probably my last gig now as I’m now learning web apps / Java [finally!].
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.