OStatic

IBM Plus Sun: A Few Non-Obvious Software Implications

As news of a possible IBM acquisition of Sun Microsystems is settling in, it's interesting to see how many different perspectives are appearing. Yesterday, we provided our analysis here, and here. GigaOm also had an unusual and interesting piece of analysis, concluding that the best suitor for Sun would be Cisco, not IBM. The more I think about this possible deal, the more I'm convinced that it's all about software, with Java possibly representing a key brass ring for IBM.

This post from InfoWorld has some intriguing analysis of the possible deal. Its tagline is: "Along with Sun, IBM would get Java -- and that could spell trouble for companies that rely heavily on it." The InfoWorld piece includes this input from AMR Research:

"People view this as a merger of two hardware companies, but the software is a bigger aspect that may change IBM and other large software companies," said Ian Finley, a vice president at AMR Research. "If IBM enforces control over the Java Community Process the way Microsoft controls .Net, and WebSphere becomes perceived as better middleware because of it, then IBM gets an inherent advantage. Plus, it could de-stabilize the foundations of Oracle's and SAP's products because Oracle's Fusion and SAP's NetWeaver are both tightly wedded to Java."

Because Java is a community-driven entity, IBM would have trouble usurping control of Java standards, but it's still interesting to consider what might happen if it did just that. IBM has been a major contributor to Java, but if it took Microsoft-like control of Java standards, it could indeed have a broad influence on infrastructure applications from players such as Oracle and SAP. Sun has had little success with its middleware efforts, but IBM is a big player in that arena with WebSphere, DB2 and more.

On another note, while I think the OpenOffice suite probably has little influence on why IBM would be interested in Sun, it's nevertheless interesting to consider what would happen to OpenOffice in the event of a deal between the two companies. As NetworkWorld notes: "Sun is the primary sponsor of OpenOffice.org and the primary contributor of code to the project, a role IBM would have to assume."

According to some estimates, there are 11 million OpenOffice users in the U.S. alone. What influence might IBM's stewardship of OpenOffice have on Microsoft's desktop application business? I'm sticking with the same conclusion that I came to yesterday: If this acquisition happens, IBM will probably steer many of Sun's open source and open standards initiatives toward proprietary ones.




 

• OpenOffice
• Sun
• Java
• IBM
• acquisition

by Gary Edwards on Mar. 26, 2009

I disagree. An IBM takeover of both OpenOffice and OASIS OpenDocument will save these efforts. Sun's self serving stewardship has been more about bringing Microsoft to the table and cutting corporate beneficial market-splitting deals than the humanitarian pr they cover things with. IBM has a far better open source record, and, bringing OpenOffice ODF into compliance with Open Web technologies actually helps IBM further their corporate objectives. Just posted a comment about this: "An IBM Acquisition May Be Good for Sun, But it's Still Worrisome".

And please, don't mistake me for some fan of IBM. I'm anything but.

~ge~

0 Votes

by Sam Dean on Mar. 26, 2009

@Gary--that's an interesting take. I definitely agree that IBM goes unrecognized for how much it does in the open source arena, but it's still a company that is overwhelmingly focused on proprietary solutions. The thoughts about Sun wooing Microsoft are interesting, too, but it's nevertheless true that Sun just open sources a whole lot of what they produce. It's across all those open source offerings that I could see IBM cherry-picking things that will go proprietary.

Best,

Sam

0 Votes

Share Your Comments