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Is IBM on a Strategic Path to Control Java?
nightspd writes "David Berlind of Cnet has written a series of articles over at ZDNet about IBM's return to market dominance, including this one titled When Will IBM Buy Sun? It's a VERY interesting read and a very interesting predition, and poses a question. With the mega-merger of Compaq and Hewlett-Packard going forward, can we expect other possible mega-mergers down the line in the tech arena? Is a IBM buyout of Sun possible and/or viable?"
As if the FTC/SEC/EU would let that happen... since HP and Compaq effectively decided to self-diminish, the "merger" of the two largest commercial Un*x server companies would probably raise a few eyebrows... something about a Parker Brothers' game, I believe...
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
You know, just because Ziff Davis became the media giant it is because of the PC doesn't mean the world revoles around PCs.
Yes IBM does well with the Thinkpad division, and yes I'm sure there are sour grapes over OS/2, but do you think anyone is crying that they're not selling PCs at a profit of 6 cents per machine? They own Lexmark! They own Lotus! They make a fortune selling AS/400s and RS/6000s and Z/90s (if that's what they're called this week).
There is a small tug of war over Java, no denying that, but why would IBM buy Sun other than for their customers? They are two completely different companies in mindset and direction. You think HP and Compaq will be a difficult merger?
There are also Sun's partners to consider. Larry Ellison is not going to like it if Sun buys IBM, since Oracle ties itself so closely to Java these days, and IBM just bought Informix. I would rather see Oracle and Sun merge and split the software division.
Interesting conjecture on the part of the author, but I think it's pretty unlikely.
"All I ever wanted was to see Larry Wall give Bill Gates a Perl necklace."
http://www.eisenschmidt.org/jweisen
Gee, IBM wants to take over the computer industry... Stop the presses!
I have news for ZDNet... It is the fiduciary duty of every publicly owned corporation to attempt to gain a monopoly in every market it enters. It is not illegal to have a monopoly, just illegal to take advantage of that monopoly to retain and extend dominance.
It should come as a surprise to no one that IBM is attempting to wring profit out of open source. What else to you expect it to do? IBM does not exist to promote free software. It exists to make money, and if free (beer or speech) software is a way to do that, so be it.
And no, IBM will not be buying Sun any time soon. They have plenty of money dedicated to continuing the improvement of the already quite fine pSeries/RS6k boxes. What do they need to buy Sun for, when they have a perfectly good UNIX box already? What a moron. Buying competition at an inflated price simply to put them out of business would be a silly and stupid move.
SirWired
This is not the first time there has been talk about IBM buying Sun.
AIX (IBM's brand of Unix) has always been the red-headed step child of Unix OSes, lagging far behind Solaris and HP/UX in market share.
IBM has always wanted people to develop applications for AIX and usually resorts to paying ISVs huge sums of money to port their apps to AIX.
Buying Sun just makes sense. You get rid of AIX, which isn't that popular (outside of the scientific computing arena) anyway. You can concentrate the Power architecture R&D on its use in the iSeries 400 (AS/400). You can bring the huge resources of IBM's semiconductor business to bear on making SPARC more competitive on a performance basis.
As for IBM's control of Java, who knows? I think they have been coveting Java for quite a long time now. They would kill for an opportunity to co-opt Java to their own devices, but Sun stands in their way.
IBM would rule the commericial Unix computing market, which is why the FTC/EU would never approve the merger.
It's something to think about, but unlikely to happen.
"I'm not a journalist, but I play one on TV."
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
>>"It's a lot easier to create a natural monopoly by simply selling a better product(ala Microsoft) than to create a monopoly by buying up all of your competitors."
Sorry Sheldon, Microsoft in no way has a superior product. None of it's products are "best of breed". Furthermore, Microsoft illegally created and leverages it's monopoly. It's also continuing to try and grow into other markets by buying other companies. Never forget, Microsoft *never* invents anything, it either steals it or buys it.
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
IBM isn't kicking everyone's ass. Their OS's are failing and so their moving to Linux. They are fighting tooth and nail with Sun in the server market; Sun still maintains a lead there. The list goes on. IBM is a very competitive company but isn't kicking everyone's ass.
:) They kick ass; they get repeat business at low cost of aquisition; they are the reason IBM is sinking.
Except for Global Services. GS has the ability to come into an organization and keep on selling IBM goods and services until the customer runs out of money