Tag Archive for 'acquisitions'

“Your iPod is like your home answering machine…”

Published on April 21, 2009 in business and tech.

…”I guarantee you it will be hard to sell an iPod five or seven years from now when every cell phone can access your entire music library wherever you are.”  — Sun CEO, Scott McNealy in a 2006 article at The Register.

Being big tech industry news, MacRumors posted a note on the Oracle buyout of Sun.  It points out that Sun attempted to buy Apple once, and there were two occasions where the companies nearly merged.  MR cites a 2006 article at The Register with Sun co-founder Bill Joy that I quoted above.

The article points out Scott McNealy’s hesitance toward Apple, especially the long range success of the iPod, which prompted the quote.   In retrospect, that quote looks so funny with my iPhone setting on my desk and talks that Apple is developing technology to stream music from your desktop to you Internet-connected iPhone or iPod anywhere in the world.  Three years later, Apple is going strong, and Sun has been gobbled up.

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CNet: Oracle to buy Sun

Published on April 20, 2009 in business and tech.

After months of rumors that IBM was to acquire Sun, Cnet is reporting that Sun is selling, but not to IBM, rather to Oracle. The deal is reportedly worth $7.4B.

I you’ve read my blog, you’ll know that my primary concern with the acquisition of Sun from any company is the fate MySQL, which Sun purchased last year. Leading up to that purchase, Oracle had failed several times to buy MySQL itself, which I was happy about. MySQL offers database software in a market in which Oracle has yet to find a foothold, and I feared that Oracle acquiring the company might stifle the development of the open source product.

So here we are about a year later and Oracle ends up with MySQL via Sun. What will happen to MySQL now? Maybe it will be good for it or maybe bad, or maybe its open source roots will see its core survive under a different name like MariaDB or Drizzle.

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WSJ.com: IBM, Sun Talks Dying Quickly?

Published on April 5, 2009 in business and tech.

It looks like IBM’s bid to buy Sun might be fading according to the Wall Street Journal. I guess $7B was too low for Sun to consider it.

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NY Times: IBM to pay $7B for Sun

Published on April 3, 2009 in business and tech.

As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, IBM is looking to acquire Sun. According to the NY Times, the acquisition appears to be imminent for a cool $7 billion (h/t Slashdot).

My main question is “what will happen to MySQL?”, especially in the midst of confusion over what the real version of the popular DB software really is.  According to the Times article, though, MySQL could be a key reason that IBM is making this move.

I.B.M.’s acquisition of Sun would disrupt that long partnership with Oracle. I.B.M. could also undercut Oracle by more actively promoting the free MySQL software, which has become the most popular database software with Internet companies.  – NY Times article

My gut says Zend is next.

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IBM to buy Sun?

Published on March 18, 2009 in business and tech.

The New York Times is reporting (via Slashdot) that IBM and Sun are in talks regarding the former acquiring the latter.

The Wall Street Journal, quoting “people familiar with the matter,” reported Wednesday that International Business Machines was in talks to buy Sun for at least $6.5 billion in cash, a premium of more than 100 percent over the company’s closing share price Tuesday. Officials of Sun and IBM could not immediately be reached for comment.

This is an interesting development considering Sun’s recent acquisition of MySQL AB, and IBM’s speculated interest in Zend, the primary developers of PHP.  Such a series of purchases would put IBM in a solid position to start using buzzwords like “cloud computing.”

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