Why they heck would they do something that silly? The HW part of Sun makes a _lot_ of money. It's the SW that loses us money (yeah, I work for Sun). From Oracle's public statements (and that's all the information I have), it appears that one of the main reasons Oracle is buying us is to get the HW part.
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Oracle to buy Sun for 7.5 billion
- Thread starter Full of Win
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Why they heck would they do something that silly? The HW part of Sun makes a _lot_ of money. It's the SW that loses us money (yeah, I work for Sun). From Oracle's public statements (and that's all the information I have), it appears that one of the main reasons Oracle is buying us is to get the HW part.
belvdr
macrumors 603
But Oracle has done just the opposite. Everything is practically given away, and the margin is high on their database and application software.
This has worked well for them, and I doubt they'll flip positions based on Sun (and how their revenue has dropped). Honestly, I fail to see why Oracle would keep some of Sun's storage arrays or their servers. The server hardware is expensive from an R&D standpoint, and Oracle just isn't in the hardware business full throttle. Sure, they can use the storage and tape libraries, but the servers are a no-go. There's a reason why Oracle develops primarily on Linux these days then ports to other operating systems.
Forget about Oracle as a software company. This is a transformational acquisition. They become a one-stop shop for IT solutions. The only thing comparable is IBM.
belvdr
macrumors 603
I don't think that's going to happen really. I believe that would divert their attention from the existing main stream products and would cause issues with cash flow. Their RDBMS software is second-to-none and I don't think it is worth the risk to become a hardware player.
There are other Sun software specialties where Oracle can get a big boost.
They are not only selling software. They are also selling services. The hardware is needed to compete against HP and IBM.
And the Oracle/Sun FAQ states that they are "100% commited to customer satisfaction". And Sun's customers won't be satisfied if the hardware is left to die.
Depends on your definition of success. Open source software has certainly been a successful way to get Sun technology into many new hands, just like iPods have been a successful way to get Apple products into many more hands than Macs ever did. But it's certainly not where most of Sun's revenue comes from.
Contributions from Sun to its open source projects like OpenOffice, Java, Netbeans, dtrace and ZFS, in general, still greatly outweigh those contributions that come from outside Sun. So if Sun/Oracle was suddenly to decide to stop any involvement with, say, OpenOffice, and turn it over entirely to the community, all I'm saying is that development would inevitably slow way down for a while, and may stop altogether if there weren't enough people interested in doing the work to keep it alive.
Disclaimer: Just to make it clear, I have absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of what Oracle expects to do with OpenOffice or any other open source project should the acquisition be completed, so this is pure speculation on my part 🙂
I think that's a key goal: being able to delivering the whole package, a database server ready to go and fine-tuned for an enterprise operation. It matches the trend toward outsourcing I.T. operations (which waxes and wanes if you wait long enough) will let Oracle meet competitive challenges, and maybe even get their foot in the door at shops that use Sun systems but not Oracle software.
There's always a risk of moving ahead, a risk of getting behind, and a risk of staying in the same place. For better or worse, Oracle is making their move by acquiring a major hardware maker. Now we get to see what they do with it.
I'm afraid that any sensible business would make that promise at the time of an acquisition, to avoid scaring customers away, no matter what is planned down the road.
iPhoneNYC
macrumors 6502a
Oracle stepped in so quickly after IBM I wonder if they had time to do a full accounted of Sun's worth. IBM kept lowering their offer so one wonders if this a good deal. Apparently, Sun rejected the lower IBM offer because it didn't have enough cash for the executives to fly away with...
This is a real bargain. The market does not understand Sun's true worth.
And here we go:
http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2009-04/sunflash.20090421.1.xml
http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2009-04/sunflash.20090421.2.xml
http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2009-04/sunflash.20090421.3.xml
And here we go:
http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2009-04/sunflash.20090421.1.xml
http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2009-04/sunflash.20090421.2.xml
http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2009-04/sunflash.20090421.3.xml
belvdr
macrumors 603
Good OS, some overpriced workstations, and decent servers, but support has gone in the crapper. I noticed a huge difference in support when Sun bought StorageTek. Given that, I think the market is dead on, as any product is only good as the support for it.
Still, it's not an Oracle RDBMS. I guess Oracle could sell this to the little guys, but it is still nowhere close to Oracle in any sense. Maybe Oracle could pump a bit of their feature set into MySQL.
belvdr
macrumors 603
True, but who says Oracle is wanting to go up against the big hardware vendors on a hardware basis only? HP sells hardware but doesn't really step into the software services that Oracle offers.
Oracle may just want a small portion of Sun's hardware business and not develop those monstrous servers. It seems it didn't work well for Sun.
How many companies do you know of that state they don't care about customer satisfaction, especially during an acquisition?
PinkyMacGodess
Suspended
Hmmm...
I don't see this as being particularly positive for Sun. Yes, it saves them from bankruptcy but I don't think that Oracle will be able to pull it off...
I don't see this as being particularly positive for Sun. Yes, it saves them from bankruptcy but I don't think that Oracle will be able to pull it off...
PinkyMacGodess
Suspended
No one gave Sun to Oracle. Oracle is buying them and the market essentially set the price.
PinkyMacGodess
Suspended
Innovation
Sun also came up with what they call their 'blackbox project' which is an entire server farm mounted in a large shipping container which can be dropped off and wired up for disaster recovery. A company can get their IT assets back running quickly and they could even be used for foreign countries too.
I got a chance to tour a couple of them and was impressed.
I'm sad to see them go. Just like Cobalt when Sun ate them...
Sun also came up with what they call their 'blackbox project' which is an entire server farm mounted in a large shipping container which can be dropped off and wired up for disaster recovery. A company can get their IT assets back running quickly and they could even be used for foreign countries too.
I got a chance to tour a couple of them and was impressed.
I'm sad to see them go. Just like Cobalt when Sun ate them...
Eric S.
macrumors 68040
They may say it took three days but this deal has been in the works since the IBM deal fell through. Sun's books were already prepared from the negotiations with IBM, so that probably didn't take long. Compensation for the executives may have been a sticking point for IBM, but the bigger issue was the potential antitrust action. Sun wanted IBM to go to the mat for the deal if the government tried to kill it; IBM wasn't willing to give assurances on that point. An Oracle/Sun deal doesn't pose the same risk of antitrust action. The government will look it over but it's unlikely they will try to stop it.