Sun rises on talk of IBM deal. Good for Linux?
Beleaguered Sun Microsystems, whose share price has been languishing at one of its lowest points ever for the past year, has just been given a shot in the arm with yesterday’s talk of an IBM buyout. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how Sun’s share price gave the company a market capitalisation only slightly larger than that of Red Hat, despite revenues 20-fold more than those of Red Hat. At the close of the NYSE on March 17 Sun’s share was trading at $4.92. With the overnight news of a potential IBM buyout that price rocketed to open at $8.31 yesterday, eventually closing at $8.94. Which gives Sun a market capitalisation of more than $6.6 billion. But is it good for Linux and open source?
Clearly the market likes the idea of IBM snapping up Sun but would such a deal be good for open source and Linux? It’s hard to say but there are many advantages in such a deal. For a start, despite its heritage as a hardware vendor, Sun’s future looks certain to lie in open source software, even though it is finding it incredibly hard to make that transition. Sun owns some very valuable software properties including Java, MySQL and VirtualBox, items that IBM could well monetise if it could get its hands on them. And in doing so it might well preserve and grow these properties.
IBM’s Websphere product also already uses Java extensively and it would make sense for IBM to acquire that. There is also potential for Sun’s MySQL database as a possible replacement for IBM’s flagging DB2, which could see the open source database extend its reach, with positive knock-on effects.
Of course, Sun is also a custodian of the OpenOffice project, and with Sun looking likely to suffer a slow and lingering death, it would be nice to know that OpenOffice was in good hands for the next few years. Which we hope IBM will be.
Despite obvious overlaps between Sun and IBM (both have hardware, a Unix and a database) the biggest potential advantage is the possible consolidation of around Linux servers. Both IBM and Sun have strategies in place for this already and a consolidated effort could give Linux a serious boost.
Having said that, there are still many questions and disadvantages in such a deal. As Dana Gardner argues, “by buying Sun, IBM gains little other than some intellectual property and MySQL”.
There could be many advantages for open source and Linux if such a deal was to go through, but the jury is still out. What effect do you think the deal could have? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
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4 Responses to “Sun rises on talk of IBM deal. Good for Linux?”
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March 19th, 2009 @ 11:11 pm
Do you read Om Maliks blog? He recently published this article in which he says “All IBM would do is sell it off in pieces and keep a few jewels for itself, essentially eliminating a competitor. Everything else is codeine-influenced pillow talk.” What do you think about this?
I like his suggestion that Cisco buy them instead
March 20th, 2009 @ 11:53 am
Frankly, I think the IBM acquisition is Sun’s last and best hope……If the deal does not go through, then to use the words of the two Ronnies: “It’s goodnight from me….and it’s goodnight from him.” Sunset.
March 20th, 2009 @ 8:47 pm
My friends:
1.- If IBM buy Sun Microsystems, the first thing they will do is to take advantage of the excellent talent and human capital Sun.
2.- Is not a real “trouble” or issue to Linux if IBM owns SOLARIS. On the contrary. It is to give another option for the I.T. market and consumers.
3.- Is more than ovious that SUN has no more mony to invest on Hardware, so it will be a good option to include more products and functionality into the IBM Softare briefcase.
4.- Talking about Hardware, IBM will gain a lot of empowerment and skills about AMD, and with Virtual Box of Sun (befor from INOTEC), will be a very good HOSTED-VIRTUALIZATION option.
Sounds good to me
March 24th, 2009 @ 6:11 pm
One benefit to Linux I see is that IBM would perhaps be more interested in GPLing ZFS than Sun is. IBM is a huge reseller of Linux to the enterprise and there are plenty of enterprises who would like to run ZFS on Linux.