It was only a few years ago when Sun Microsystems was on top of everything. Just before the dot-com bubble burst, it was seeing huge sales and stock prices above $250. It’s sad to see just how bad the company is doing now, but it seems to be trying to get out of it. It seems Sun had approached a number of large tech companies about an acquisition. Well, it seems there are fragile talks going on between Sun and IBM that could result in such an acquisition.
The acquisition could value Sun at twice that of its $4.97 stock price at closing on Tuesday. The biggest impact of the possible acquisition would be in the server business. IBM is the top manufacturer of computer servers, followed by HP and Dell. Acquiring Sun could give them a considerable lead on both of them, given Sun’s stance in the market. It would actually give IBM a 42 percent control of the market which HP and Dell would be hard pressed top.
The two companies combined could also mean great things for the linux world. Both IBM and Sun are huge proponents of linux, with most of their servers running on UNIX-based systems. Sun also has it’s UNIX-based Solaris OS, which could benefit greatly from the engineers at IBM. Between the two companies, there would be a commanding influence in the world of open-source computing and cross-platform development, which could be a potential problem for Microsoft, but great for consumers.
The talks are fragile, but could result in a deal as early as the end of the week.
Read [Reuters]
Read [Electronista]
I guess we'll all just have to wait and see what happens. I don't see how IBM can really fit Sparc or other key technologies into their business plans. The worst case scenario would be like what GE did to RCA. Take NBS and then sell off or shut down everything else… the end of a legacy. I'd hate to see OpenSolaris lose momentum now.