OStatic

When Oracle announced its intent to acquire Sun Microsystems, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said Java is the single most important software we've ever acquired. Since he made that statement, though, there has been a lot of second-guessing regarding Oracle's true intent with Java. The DevXtra Editor's Blog, for example, suggests that ?as Oracle seeks to get a $1.5 billion contribution to its profits in its first year with Sun, Oracle may start pulling staff and funding from Sun Java projects that don't immediately contribute to the bottom line or at least show promise of contributing in the near future. While that's possible, I'm more inclined to believe that Oracle will extend much of what Sun has done with Java, and one big reason for that is that Java makes Oracle an important player in the fast-growing market for mobile technology.

In November, I wrote about Ulteo's Open Virtual Desktop, an open source desktop delivery utility. Simply described, the Ulteo Open Virtual Desktop (OVD) is a browser-based operating system and applications suite that is controlled and configured, ideally, by your organization's systems administrators. This makes managing, working, and collaborating from remote locations possible so long as there is a computer nearby with a Java-enabled browser and internet connection.

This week, Ulteo announced some major updates to its OVD, including the ability to deliver Linux and Windows applications (or a mix of both), Active Directory and LDAP authentication capabilities, several file server options, and collaboration support.

I can safely say when I covered the speculation that IBM and Sun were wrapping up the finer points of the acquisition Friday, I figured that if there was anything left to say come Monday, it would deal with idiosyncracies of the agreed-upon terms. Even though the announcement is imminent reports were not officially sanctioned by IBM or Sun, there was no reason to believe the sources were dishonest about the information they gave. It still doesn't seem there was dishonesty, or that these sources made wildly off-base assumptions about what was to come. It seemed as though IBM's purchase of Sun Microsystems was set to proceed, until late Saturday evening, when IBM and Sun broke off negotiations, according to Bloomberg.

There had been much debate about how an IBM acquisition would affect Sun's open source efforts. As those questions move even further into the hypothetical realm, far more troubling questions loom about Sun's next potential buyer -- or its choice to weather the storm on its own.

According to the New York Times and Bloomberg, IBM's purchase of Sun Microsystems is imminent. The official announcement and terms of the acquisition will most likely be made public on Monday, but a late in the day announcement hasn't been ruled out. It's estimated that the purchase will cost IBM nearly $7 billion.

There's been much speculation and discussion both here at OStatic and elsewhere about what this means for Sun and its open source projects.