IBM & Sun Agreement Puts Pressure on HP

eldavojohn writes "IBM has turned to long time rival Sun in an effort to bring Solaris to its mainframes. Sun may be taking this chance to drop out of the server market while at the same time capture Solaris subscriptions via IBM sales. Either way, this certainly pressures HP in the server department."

Comments

out of the server market?

[jcgf]

Sun may be taking this chance to drop out of the server market while at the same time capture Solaris subscriptions via IBM sales.

I don't know, Sun is investing quite a bit in their new niagra processors, so why would they get out of the server business?

Re:out of the server market?

[Trailer Trash]

I don't know, Sun is investing quite a bit in their new niagra processors, so why would they get out of the server business?

They're also investing in a new line of viagra processors, which promise longer up-time.

Not really mainframes

[Jim Hall]

It's not really mainframes. Yes, the IBM / Sun agreement will eventually put Solaris on the IBM mainframe, but more importantly was this bit at the beginning of the article:

The collaboration announced Thursday will enable Sun's Solaris operating system to run on IBM servers. That means customers that run Sun servers will be able to switch to Big Blue's hardware without having to rewrite any programs. / At first this will be possible on IBM's "x" series of servers, which also run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows or the open-source Linux system. But eventually IBM hopes to bring Solaris to the mainframe, the big multitasking machines that have been one of the company's core profit centers for decades.

So you'll be able to run Solaris on IBM x-series hardware. This is a big deal. While you're unlikely to see big customers migrating their workload off the big systems (E25k, etc) to x-series, certainly you'll have customers moving smaller Solaris workloads to x-series. When you can run Solaris on IBM z-series (the mainframe) then customers can look again to move the big systems to IBM/Solaris.

Wow, it's just so weird to write "IBM/Solaris". :-)

Re:Not really mainframes

[the_humeister]

Wow, it's just so weird to write "IBM/Solaris". :-)

Make that GNU/IBM/Solaris...

Thanks you! I'll be here all week...

Let Jonathan explain the deal

[Bryan-10021]

``As many are already aware, we embarked upon a journey a couple years ago to formally separate the Solaris operating system from Sun's hardware business - as well as bring Solaris to the free and open source software world via a community effort named OpenSolaris. None of these changes were easy, but I'd like to believe both were successful. What's my proof?`` Read the rest in Sun CEO's blog.

Submitter is an idiot

[PCM2]

Nowhere in the article does it say Sun is thinking of dropping out of the server market. Rather, it mentions that Sun is tied with Dell for the #3 spot. You'd have to be an idiot to think Sun was even considering walking away now.

Re:Submitter is an idiot

[ejito]

They won't drop out for quite awhile, but Sun was visiting universities (including mine), and their presentations were emphasizing a shift to services. Their long term goals are for support on top of open source software (they believe in house developers will become a liability for businesses, who in turn will shift their development to large businesses like Sun).

If IBM sells more Solaris servers, Sun wins long term software support and IBM wins hardware sales and support, and both extend their brands. Of course, having their own line of hardware keeps a steady stream of support business; but I think they'd move their hardware business over to smaller niche markets or consolidate it with a larger company in a fiscal heartbeat. Sun is looking at every way to capture more developers.

Keeping Solaris Relevant

[d3xt3r]

I don't buy the idea that Sun is looking to bail out of the hardware business. What they are looking to do is keep Solaris relevant. Sun doesn't want you to think Solaris requires Sun hardware. Sun realized that the only option for people wanting to go with x86/x86_64 chips and run a Unix-like OS on supported hardware meant running Linux or buying Sun gear.

Sun is looking to eat some of Linux's lunch. The question is, why is IBM interested?

Re:Keeping Solaris Relevant

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is, why is IBM interested?

They want the financial services market. Really. Major financials I've been in (yes, they're household names) run one of the following:

• Linux
• Solaris
• Windows

That's probably the list of servers, in order of decreasing market share. In some of the larger ones, Solaris (both on SPARC and x86) win over Linux, while others have bigger Linux installations. What I haven't seen have been HP/UX. I've seen one financial use AIX boxes, and that was over ten years ago now. IBM wants inroads into these companies, however they can get it, and they see being able to run Solaris apps (anywhere from trading platforms like GL or Fidessa, to FIX engines to Market Data pieces) on IBM hardware as a big win. On the heels of IBM hardware come things like IBM support contracts and IBM consulting.

I'm posting this anonymously, because even though there aren't any identifying stuff here, I really don't want my employers to see this.

Re:Another nail in the server coffin for HP

[afidel]

Hahahaha, HP makes the best x86/x64 servers on the market right now. iLo, quickstart, foundation pack, etc all make HP's way easier to manage then the competition. Not only that but 6Hr call to repair is impossible to beat in the x86 world. The only thing that's slightly lacking is first and second level support, but I almost never need them and as soon as they start wasting my time I ask for the duty manager so I can get an SME on the phone.

why doesn't IBM just buy Sun?

[m2943]

Why doesn't IBM just buy Sun? They'd get control of Java and Solaris, they could kill the Sun/Microsoft dealings, and they'd get Sun's server customers. Granted, at 16B, Sun is probably still somewhat overvalued, but I think such a deal would be good for IBM overall.

Re:why doesn't IBM just buy Sun?

[stevesliva]

I think that Sun may finally not be overpriced. It's forward P/E is similar to IBM's. I guess it depends on how correct the analysts are about Sun's prospects next year.

I've often wondered if IBM would just up and buy Sun, but there's a few reasons I think it would be a poor acquisition. First of all, the past five years or so have proven that the remaining Sun customers will not jump ship just because Sun's not building the fastest or cheapest unix boxes. These customers stick around because, for some reason, they like Sun. I won't speculate as to why, but there are quite a few reasons why that can be. If IBM buys Sun, those customers immediately like Sun a lot less, because they've been choosing Sun over IBM for years. Secondly, IBM has worked very hard for the past couple decades to never retire any substantial enterprise architecture. Combining AS/400 and RS/6000 has been a decade long project with the loyal AS/400 customers being skeptical the whole way. What does Sun bring? A second proprietary flavor of Unix, another line of RISC unix boxes with a different architecture, another blade chassis, and this newfangled exotic Niagara/Rock architecture. Looking at IBM's server history, they'd retire none of this, and development costs wouldn't decline. They'd rather that Sun foot the bill for continuing development of UltraSPARC and Solaris for a static or declining market, rather than buy those customers only to chase them away when killing the architecture, like what happened with Alpha. I don't see IBM paying $25B to Sun to merely begin making Sun's business worthless. (And I don't think that was the plan with DEC-Alpha, but I don't think Compaq planned on getting enveloped by HP.)

IBM wants growing businesses that improve their profit margin. If IBM could buy select parts of Sun, they might, even if they hardly ever make hardware acquisitions, but they really couldn't get the good without the bad, and even if they did, who knows what goodwill is lost when the profits go to Armonk rather than Silicon Valley?

Re:Possible Futures of Possible Pasts

[porky_pig_jr]

If sun had bought Apple, z-frames would have the iPod slot (and come with an optional matching white color).

Not the first time...

[georgewilliamherbert]

In the 90s, there was a PowerPC port of Solaris 2.x. IBM has wanted to get out of the AIX business for decades. Sun had the chance to walk in and take over the UNIX market in pretty much one fell swoop, and walked away from it for percieved strategy benefits at the time.

IBM still wants to walk away from AIX... hence the Linux support. But I think they realize that there are businesses who are queasy about high end enterprise Linux who will jump all over Solaris, and it's essentially just having to agree to a marketing project now so it's free for everyone...

Sun doesn't want out of the server market. The server market keeps Sun's employees happy and well paid.

Re:Bait-n-switch

[HockeyPuck]

A couple of additional points here. First, IBM paints a pretty picture about being all cozy with Linux. The truth is that they use it as a bait-n-switch tactic to get people to move to AIX or z/OS (all proprietary IBM Operating Systems). This means added revenue for IBM. That is, as soon as customers start putting a heavy load on the system, IBM will start pushing AIX or z/OS as a preferred solution. Dunno about bait and switch being an IBM trait. You could say that for ANY IT vendor. You start out by buying their entry/lowend gear and if you continue to grow they start to recommend larger/higherend versions of their gear. There aren't many shops where the google/yahoo model (add more and more commodity servers...) works. While the largest x86 based server IBM makes can have 32CPUs (primary use is VMWare), i highly doubt that windows or linux could take advantage of that many CPUs for a large database installation, while AIX/OS400 have no problems dealing with high numbers of CPUs.

Since this is /. and we must have examples:

I'm sure...

Your network is made up of hundreds of 16port Cisco hubs and not 9slot Cat6ks.
Your storage sits on internal disk and not external arrays by EMC/HDS/IBM/HP..
You still ride the same 1 gear bicycle you had when you were 6, and didn't upgrade to one with more gears.
10Mb ethernet on coax is still the preferred medium.
Haven't upgraded from linux 2.2 or windows 95.

Re:This is dissapointing.

[mjt5282]

Are you kidding me? Sun has just announced the T2 (Niagara 2) processor - 64 concurrent threads. High speed 10G networking. Built-in encryption support for apache. Sun is still in the "game" - its just that the "game" has changed and Sun can no longer make money selling $1M USD refrigerator-sized servers. Hopefully, Sun can make money by selling the most technologically advanced sub $20K servers that are optimized for scalability, throughput and middleware (Databases, web, infra etc).

I for one...

[Arthur Grumbine]

...welcome our new IBM/Sun overlo-- wait a second! They've always been our overlords!

Re:Solaris is only irrelevant if you play with toy

[M. Baranczak]

Gotta love the Solaris fanatics. Next I suppose you'll be telling me that Linux isn't "real Unix".

Solaris is a fine OS, and it's got some features that nobody else has. But in some areas it's about 10-15 years behind Linux and BSD. Don't take my word for it - take a look at what Sun itself is saying. Here's a few excerpts:

Solaris installation is ugly, slow, and difficult.
...
We use outdated networking technology (RARP and Bootparams) by default, rather than contemporary network protocols, and thus are often unable to automatically determine configuration attributes that are easily discovered by our competition.
...
We don't include the right set of initial configuration tasks, such as an initial user account, that are commonly provided by competitors. This results in an installed system which boots, and can be logged into as root, but it's then up to the user to hunt around and find a tool (or, more likely, edit the configuration files directly due to our paucity of tools and poor integration of those that exist into the desktop) to create a usable account.
...
One of the significant deficiencies in Solaris compared to our Linux competitors is our ability to easily install additional software after the initial installation.

Well, the good news is that Sun is actually working hard to fix these problems.

What's in it for IBM

[Daishiman]

Disclaimer: I work for IBM.

IBM is becoming primarily a services company, doing systems development, "solutions architecture", and outsourced operations. A LOT of people at IBM are familiar with Sun technology and have used it at one point or another. Heck, most of the Global Services staff that maintain AIX servers also maintain Solaris servers. How hard do you think it would be for IBM to expand their business saying "Sure, we support Solaris. We can build that payroll system that you need for your company on your existing Sun infrastructure. BTW, can we interest you in a new pSeries for these workloads?".

Indeed, this is opening up a new area of the market where they can now claim expertise and recognition. And when the installed customer base is satisfied with what they have, it'll be 10 times easier to migrate their hardware to IBM stuff, and software to IBM proprietary OSes, if there's more profit to be made there.

Sun is not dropping the server market...

[Fallen Kell]

They have too many new technologies in active development for them to drop out of the server market. Their new Sparc processors, and motherboard chipsets truly have major advantages over current Intel offerings. The new T2 processors in a 4 or 8 CPU system can and will stomp over anything out of Wintell (64 threads per CPU, time 8 CPU's makes 512 ACTIVE processes at a time in a single box! Now imagine a beowulf or grid cluster of those! Hell, simply imagine a single rack!). No, Sun isn't leaving the server market, they are simply expanding their OS market, nothing more. Which is a good thing. The more hardware that can run Solaris, the more it will be seen by new people who may not be familiar with it. The new capabilities for self healing processes, zones (think like VMWare, but each is running a contained Solaris, without a ton of overhead from having the separate kernel instances, as well as being able to portion exact percentages of resources to each zone. This allows multiple "budgets" too pool together and buy a big(er) server then they would otherwise and have assurances that each group would get at a minimum X% of CPU time (or memory, or bandwidth, etc., etc.) on the system, where X corresponds to the percentage of the cost that the department/group/unit paid to purchase the server, and if no one else is using the system, well, you get to use all its resourses...).

No Sun is far from leaving the server market. Very, VERY far.

Re:Nah, this'll never fly

[Xiaran]

the big one is that they know how it works all the way down to the metal and they can get someone on site in 4 hours who can fix it

I admire your optimism. I was young once :)