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Sun In Talks To Be Acquired By IBM

gandhi_2 writes "Sun Microsystems soared in European trading after a report that it was in talks to be acquired by IBM. The Wall Street Journal, quoting "people familiar with the matter," reported Wednesday that International Business Machines was in talks to buy the company for at least $6.5 billion in cash, a premium of more than 100 percent over the company's closing share price Tuesday. Officials of Sun and IBM could not immediately be reached for comment."

16 of 526 comments (clear)

  1. Container? by MortenMW · · Score: 5, Funny

    So, can I finally get a 20' container with IBM servers in it?

  2. Lotus Notes and Java... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...together at last!

  3. Good idea! by Main+MAn · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why nobody though about that before?

    1- Buy Sun
    2- License ZFS under GPLv2
    3- Sell Sun
    4- Done

  4. We're the dot in dot com by andy1307 · · Score: 5, Funny

    IBM.com that is...

  5. Re:IT's a smart move for both by tjstork · · Score: 2, Funny

    Except for the employees of Sun. Update your resume now

    Hmmm.... wouldn't be so sure of that. I'd be willing to bet that these people are pooping some square ones.

    http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/software/aix/index.html

    --
    This is my sig.
  6. A shiny day? by KlaymenDK · · Score: 4, Funny

    I find the big blue room so much nicer when there's a sun in it. Don't you?

  7. Re:IBM is NOT more pro-Open Source than Sun by Nursie · · Score: 2, Funny

    Hey, don't forget that IBM open sourced UNIX in the form of Linux!!

  8. Re:For $6.5b by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    It is of course well known that careless talk costs lives, but the full scale of the problem is not always appreciated.

    For instance, at the very moment that Arthur said "I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle," a freak wormhole opened up in the fabric of the space-time continuum and carried his words far far back in time across almost infinite reaches of space to a distant Galaxy where strange and warlike beings were poised on the brink of frightful interstellar battle.

    The two opposing leaders were meeting for the last time.

    A dreadful silence fell across the conference table as the commander of the Vl'hurgs, resplendent in his black jewelled battle shorts, gazed levelly at the G'Gugvuntt leader squatting opposite him in a cloud of green sweet-smelling steam, and, with a million sleek and horribly beweaponed star cruisers poised to unleash electric death at his single word of command, challenged the vile creature to take back what it had said about his mother.

    The creature stirred in his sickly broiling vapour, and at that very moment the words I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle drifted across the conference table.

    Unfortunately, in the Vl'hurg tongue this was the most dreadful insult imaginable, and there was nothing for it but to wage terrible war for centuries.

    Eventually of course, after their Galaxy had been decimated over a few thousand years, it was realized that the whole thing had been a ghastly mistake, and so the two opposing battle fleets settled their few remaining differences in order to launch a joint attack on our own Galaxy - now positively identified as the source of the offending remark.

    For thousands more years the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the first planet they came across - which happened to be the Earth - where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog.

    Those who study the complex interplay of cause and effect in the history of the Universe say that this sort of thing is going on all the time, but that we are powerless to prevent it.

    "It's just life," they say.

  9. Re:Fate ofSun's products that compete with IBM? by kamnet · · Score: 2, Funny

    I meant Windows and Linux. That comment made me so damn angry I typed and hit the Submit button too damn quickly for my own good.

    --
    I like /.
  10. Re:That would *really* suck... by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 4, Funny

    Before you know it it'll become more complicated to use

    Java? I didn't think that was possible. On the other hand, IBM sells Lotus Notes, so who knows what they are capable of?

    --
    You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
  11. Re:IBM is NOT more pro-Open Source than Sun by Nursie · · Score: 2, Funny

    Dammit, there was supposed to be a "" tag in there, but slashdot ate it.

  12. The Titanic Had a Lot of Momentum by zandermander · · Score: 3, Funny

    I've been expecting an announcement like this since at least 2002. I was at a recruiting event at Sun back in late 2002 and it was pretty obvious to me then that they had lost their way. They had no killer products or even rumors of such, they'd gone through a number of rounds of "cost cutting" measures (read: layoffs) and they were focused on yesterday's technology or pie-in-the-sky ideas. But, big things have a lot of momentum and can coast for a long time before reality hits. And, for some, reality will only hit when they feel the frigid waters of the north Atlantic.

  13. Noooooooo!!!!!!!! by S77IM · · Score: 5, Funny

    OK, I've got no special love for Sun, but please God please, do not let them get swallowed up by the IBM bureaucracy.

    "New in Java 8! XML-binding database security extension protocol modules for WebSphere integrated at every level of the language, providing automatic clustering, fail-over and performance profiling! To support this feature, a critical part of many customer solutions, writing a Java class will now require an additional 37 configuration files, and if you make a mistake in any one of them, a cryptic error will be thrown at run-time. For security reasons, we can't tell you what the error codes mean. Also, half of java.* and javax.* no longer work according to the specification and javadoc, and XML will now be stored in binary. IBM consultants are available to help you with the transition."

      -- 77IM

    --
    Student: Is it true that the foundation of the universe is paradox?
    Master: Well, yes and no.
  14. Re:hmmm by buddyglass · · Score: 2, Funny

    There's some convergence. MySQL is trying to get more "serious" and DB2 is trying to be "DB2 Lite" in order to access SMB customers.

  15. No. Not Now. Not Ever. I'm Coming For All Of You! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Oh would I love to be a fly on the wall when Scott meets the board of IBM:

    Sam: "Scott, we are cylons, welcome to IBM, come on in here and meet the Boys."
    Scott enters with buck-teeth grinning and nervously shaking hands.
    Sam: "Come on in, resistance is futile, heh, heh, heh, have a seat, can we get you some coffee or a hot secretary with a danish?"
    Sam pushes button, windows begin to black out, screen descends from the ceiling, lights lower and first two bars of Battlestar Galactica theme begins to play over and over again.
    Sam: "Let us review."
    Battlestar Galactica theme continues past first two bars as announcer says "previously on Battlestar": a video of Scott at just about EVERY Sun or COMDEX user's conference in the 80s and 90s on stage viciously blasting IBM and Microsoft. Video of Scott and leisure suit Larry (Ellison) together onstage at various trade presentations in 80s and 90s blasting IBM and Microsoft. Clip of Scott's mom blasting IBM and Microsoft. Video of Scott touting "the network is the system" and "dot in dot com" and "network computing". Battlestar Galactica theme climaxes, 2009 is displayed on black screen and a single kettle drum beat smashes and rolls, Carmina Burana begins playing and lights come on as a team of white coated doctors and nurses enter the room and approach Scott.

  16. Move IBM to India by Baldrson · · Score: 1, Funny
    The government should allow the merger between IBM and Sun only on condition that the resulting megacorporation and all of its employees move to India.

    "IBM Offers To Move Laid Off Workers To India" and "Everyone in Indian cities is at risk of consuming human feces, if they're not already, the Ministry of Urban Development concluded in September.

    In fact, I'm going to contact my Congressmen today to recommend this stipulation. Please do the same if you love America.