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DOJ Gives Oracle Approval To Buy Sun
k33l0r writes "The BBC is reporting that the US Justice Department has approved Oracle's takeover of Sun Microsystems. The acquisition gives Oracle control over (or a leading role in), among other things, Java, MySQL, (Open)Solaris, ZFS, OpenOffice, and the NetBeans IDE. 'The European Commission has still to rule on the deal, a step that will be required before it can close. That body has indicated it will issue an initial opinion on Sept. 3, according to the Wall Street Journal. It may OK the deal at that time or launch a four-month probe of it. ... The Justice Department ruling came earlier than expected, a possible response to Sun's declining revenues and precarious business position in a steep recession, as the required reviews proceeded.' We first discussed the deal back when it was announced in April."
Apollo.
As far as mergers go this is probably a good fit. Oracle and Sun always needed each other for the most part. However I feel both are a dyeing breed. The industry wether you like it or not is moving away from those two companies core competencies.
High End Servers which are highly scalable with high end software which is highly scalable, is no longer the way it is now. We are moving to more smaller systems and don't need such scalability features as we realize that cost benefit really isn't there, for most situations.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
For those wondering why the merger wasn't simply rubber stamped, it has to do with the licensing of Java:
http://www.jroller.com/scolebourne/entry/no_java_7_us_doj
From what I read, it wasn't a *huge* deal, but enough of a concern that the DoJ had to work with Oracle instead of simply approving the merger right away.
The EU probably has similar concerns.
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Oracle's middleware business basically runs on Java. Why would they abandon it?
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Disclaimer: I work for Oracle.
When Oracle buys a company, they keep that company's staff to keep on working on whatever product they acquire. They dont shove that down the hall to whatever commando team. Based on personal observations of 4 companies that were absorbed and whose location merged in my area.
Also, as far as Java is concerned, Oracle has the best interest in keeping Java alive and well, as well as further push it. It's got a sizeable investment in Java for server-side stuff and even some client-side applications.
And from my perspective, all I can say is that more is to come.
Do you really believe Ellison hates Microsoft? I do not believe at this level of business feelings matter. We've seen multiple times companies that fight a fierce fight in court over one thing to be first friends and combine efforts in another field. Basically these companies try to do whatever is more profitable to them. If Ellison judges that it is more profitable to make OOo interopable with MS Office and Java interopable with .NET this is what he will do. I can asure you that he is above simple Slashdot-like hate for Microsoft.
That being said he may decide that the profitable thing is exactly what you said but somehow I doubt it.
By "we" you must be referring to whatever market you are in. From my perspective, the amount of data being processed has increased and scalability is more necessary now than ever before. Large companies are increasingly involved in data mining and other large scale statistical analysis, and the need for computer systems that can perform those calculations in a timely is continuing to grow.
Palm trees and 8
It's a bad deal for both companies.
The acquisition of Sparc and Solaris further estranges Oracle from Microsoft... Most of Oracle's revenues come from windows-based products and the Solaris portfolio isn't likely to change that. Likewise, they now become a competitor in Java vs. Dot-net. It isn't smart to step up from mere competitor to antagonist without gaining a massive new strength, and that didn't happen here.
Then there's Java. Drains quite a bit of cash without making enough money and Oracle as a company has the wrong temperment to maintain and improve a programming language anyway. Start charging enough to make money on Java and Java dies. Nor does having Java particularly complement Oracle's product line.
And mysql is a mess too. Improving it drains sales from their flagship database product... but failing to improve it causes a fork which loses Oracle whatever value owning Mysql had for them. Bad mojo all around.
The Sun/IBM deal would have been much smarter. IBM has a huge market for the likes of Sparc and Solaris. Better yet, they have demonstrated the wherewithal to take code they own and insert it into Linux. There's lots of stuff in Solaris to like, IBM is already weighing heavily on the side of Linux-based products and services and a well supported Linux on Sparc could save Sparc from oblivion and maybe even return it to being a growing market.
Meanwhile, IBM's database product (db2) never escaped its tiny niche. MySQL would be a great complement to their portfolio, moving them squarely into the mainstream database business.
Lastly, IBM actually has a need for Java given the breadth of hardware and OS platforms they sell. Write once run everywhere would be a huge benefit to IBM. It strongly complements the rest of what they sell, even if they never make a nickle off of it directly. Sadly, IBM can't rely on Java when it's controlled by a company as boorish as Oracle. It has to remain a minor player in their portfolio.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Actually the advantage is a fast backplane, not the memory. You may remember they bought the rights to the Cray asynchronous (really packet-switch-like) backplane quite a number of years ago, and have been expanding on it since.
It's easy to build a fast chip if it never has to maintain cache-consistency with anything off-chip. If it has to stay sane, even with only 64*4*2 = 512 threads banging on the same memory range, it not only takes an expensive bus, but it's also memory-transaction-rate limited.
That's why you read about transactional memory in Linux Weekly News: we all need it, SPARC and Intel both.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net