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IBM looks directly at Sun

Acquisition fever
Wednesday, 18 March 2009, 12:05

BIG BLUE IS making advances on Sun Microsystems in an attempt to bolster its position in the data centre server market, one of the few IT sectors expected to see positive growth in the current economic climate.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a deal, which could be worth $6.5 billion, is currently on the table which translates to 100 per cent more than Sun's current stock market value.

Apparently the deal could go ahead as early as this week... or it could all come to nowt. If everything did do IBM's way it would be the company's largest acquisition since it grabbed Canadian softco Cognos for $5 billion back in January 2008.

Sun has been ripe for a takeover for some time now and HP, Dell and Cisco have all been mentioned in the same sentence as the word 'Sun' and 'takeover' by various bankers and business pundits. µ

L'Inq
WSJ

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Prez

Warning do not buy Fujitsu SPARC systems a.k.a. Sun M-class.

posted by : Pony Tail, 18 March 2009 Complain about this comment
IBM and Sun have had long tie-up

IBM has for a long time been a major reseller of Sun gear.

Sun hardware is increasingly undifferentiated.

Acquisition will allow IBM to make major, major cuts in administration, field, and stupid Sun pet projects, while increasing investment in software.

posted by : SV Guy, 18 March 2009 Complain about this comment
Oh no!

Having supported AIX for over five years and dealt with companies before and after IBM acquisition I would see a many switching to an OpenSolaris distribution and paying them for support.
While IBM has excellent support staff, the obstacles you have to get over to get to talk to them make it a painful experience.
Sun have a bit of a problem, they don't make SPARC Workstations any more for SPARC development but expect to continue to sell SPARC servers. If they need to continue making SPARC servers. It would make sense for Sun to sell a SPARC PCI-e card which can be installed into a PC and ship the necessary drivers with OpenSolaris as standard.
The other alternative would be to get the SPARC to use the same CPU slot as the AMD Opteron.

posted by : zx, 18 March 2009 Complain about this comment
The Defeat of Global Nerdism

If IBM buys Sun, it will be a stunning defeat for Global Nerdism.

Under the guidance of Chief Nerd Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's been just a collection of nerds working on bright shinies with scant sales potential.

Even worse, they've been beavering away doing their best to give most of Sun's assets away for free.

Finally, the idiot head of Sun, smoothest talking nerd of them all, will have to produce something besides silky buzzwords, should he be daft enough to stay on board.

Actually, both sides know he'd never make it in a real corporation, so a fat parachute will be rigged.
Whilst crying all the way to the bank, one last slick geekspeak bog will be left behind, about..... bollocks, who cares, it'll be attractive, tasty, megabuzzy and ultrashiney.
And predictably, you'll starve to death eating it.

-An idiot Sun Stockholder-

posted by : SunStock, 18 March 2009 Complain about this comment
Sun goes nova!

Wow, I REALLY LIKE what SunStock posted! Very hip and tasty. Now, if only Apple would bite the big one also... Then we could really celebrate the end of Global Nerdism!

My brother is a long-time Sun worshiper... Hey, Pete, you just gonna LOVE working with Big Blue!

posted by : Rich Wargo, 18 March 2009 Complain about this comment
SPARC ...

I hope they can keep the SPARC alive...
(although the Power/PowerCell are good) :)

posted by : aNewbie, 19 March 2009 Complain about this comment
@Sunstock

So what if they're not rolling in dough? I don't know a lot about Sun, but if they make good products and everybody at the company is happy, then bully for them if they decide to give stuff away for free.

The secret to being miserable to make money or goods the final goal. It's unfortunate that you didn't make the money you expected, but that doesn't make Sun a crap company.

posted by : Jason Goatcher, 19 March 2009 Complain about this comment
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