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IBM Withdraws $7B Offer For Sun Microsystems, Says NYT

Posted by timothy on from the what-color-is-your-trial-balloon? dept.

suraj.sun points to a story in the New York Times indicating that the much-rumored merger (or purchase) that would have united Sun with IBM may have dissolved before it began. Excerpting: "I.B.M., after months of negotiations, withdrew its $7 billion bid for Sun Microsystems on Sunday, one day after Sun's board balked at a slightly reduced offer, according to a person close to the talks. The deal's collapse raises questions about Sun's next step, since the I.B.M. offer was far above the value of the Silicon Valley company's shares when news of the I.B.M. offer first surfaced last month. .. Since last year, Sun executives had been meeting with potential buyers. I.B.M. stepped up, seeing an opportunity to add to its large software business, acquire valuable researchers and consolidate the market for larger, so-called server computers that corporations use in their data centers. ... Now, Sun is free to pursue other suitors, including I.B.M. rivals like Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems. Cisco recently entered the market for server computers."

5 of 291 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Stupidity. by QuantumG · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Uh huh. If you're an executive in a company and the suitor making the offer won't agree to a golden parachute then it doesn't matter to you how much they are offering per share.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  2. Re:Crap by linhares · · Score: 5, Insightful
    My fears is that MS may buy SUN. At these prices, it's pocket change for them. And they probably do not love the fact that OpenOffice, VirtaulBox, Java, OpenSolaris, Netbeans, and a host of other things are open source and widely adopted. Despite all people that simply _detest_ java or openoffice, they probably hurt deeply microsoft.

    Wouldn't it be much much easier to Embrace Enhance Exchange if OpenOffice were in the hands of microsoft? That's what worries me.

  3. Re:Apple Should Buy Sun by Raffaello · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Java is poison to Apple. Apple's whole business model is one of OS differentiation. Java promises OS homogenization. Apple has done everything it can to damn Java with faint praise, ensuring its second class status on Mac OS, and complete absence from the iPhone OS.

  4. Re:Crap by SEE · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What does Sun have that wouldn't fork if Microsoft bought them?

  5. The Best I.T. News I've Heard In A Long Time by Smackintosh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If true.

    And I say that for three very important reasons:

    a) IBM was sure to 'consolidate' a great number of things. And I'm sure any remnants of Sun left after this process would have been IBM-ized. And I do say that with a great deal of negative connotation. IBM has a habit of having some great tech, but in many cases doing very dumb things to it to make it annoying to work with. (Exhibit #1 = AIX boxen)

    b) Our choices for 'iron' and 'OS' variety in the IT space would have been reduced as I'm sure overalpping server lines would disappear, as well as perhaps an OS (AIX vs. Solaris). Some variety in the I.T. space is most definitely to our advantage as I.T. folks. Of course, pricing competition between rivals is always a good thing, too.

    c) Lastly, the most important thing, is that we'd have lost one of the most innovative enterprise I.T. companies ever. Say what you will about their ability to turn it into large $$$, but Sun has come up with some of the most innovative ideas the server-related I.T industry has seen since their inception....and they continue to do so. I think many people lose sight of this as they like to whine about Sun simply because they're a big corporation.