Thinking The Unthinkable: Is Oracle Considering Buying Hewlett-Packard?

Forbes ^ | 08/23/2011 | Eric Savitz

[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.

[Durus]

That's why they make server lifts.

Dell's service used to be a joy to work with (compared to IBM or HP) now they have gotten as bad as everyone else. HP might suck slightly less.

[rarestia]

We have 2 server lifts, and they’re helpful but a bear to work with.

I can take a 5RU ProLiant DL580 and rack it without a lift because the rails just slide into the rack.

We could argue positives and negatives of the platforms all day. The real question: AMD or Intel?

[bigbob]

All depends on the price.

With HP dumping it’s POS WebOS tablet and Oracle buying Motorola Mobility, it’s clear where the future of hardware is going, and HP will not be a factor. When you can buy a new printer for the cost of an ink-jet cartridge, anyone with a brain can see that isn’t the source of HP’s value.

Fast-forward 10 years and ask the real qustion “Who owns the cloud?”. That’s what Larry Ellison is doing.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: With HP dumping it’s POS WebOS tablet and Oracle buying Motorola Mobility, it’s clear where the future of hardware is going

Didn’t you mean GOOGLE buying Motorola Mobility?

[SeekAndFind]

RE: In my opinion, the “unthinkable” was when Oracle bought Sun

So, how is SUN doing nowadays in the hardware space? For that matter, if Oracle acquires HP, will there be room for either SUN or HP hardware in one company?

[Durus]

Whatever offers the best value.

[dangerdoc]

“When you can buy a new printer for the cost of an ink-jet cartridge”

The printer is just a fancy cartridge holder, most of the intellectual property in an HP printer is vested in the cartridge.

Unfortunately most of the research in the last few years has been in making the cartridges hold less ink.

[brityank]

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!

Dumb indeed if you didn't have something like this to handle the placement. I routinly handled units in excess of a hundred pounds with no problem using a Genie-Lift.

[William Tell]

I have no feel for whether this could happen, but, if Oracle bought HP for its business services and sold off its printer and PC businesses, one might wonder what would happen to the "Hewlett-Packard" brand.

Perhaps the folks at Agilent would like to have it back.

[bigbob]

yes, indeed, thanks! A mind is a terrible thing...