IBM Buying Sun?

[joshuapurcell]

This new just came out today, and while it isn't verified by either party from what I've read the rumors are growing. There is much overlap between the two companies, but at the same time each company has many well known offerings that have no competitor in the other's lineup. These two companies merging would be huge for me, as I use both company's tools on a daily basis (IBM's out of necessity and Sun's out of choice). While I'm very excited about this merger happening, I hope that the overlap between offerings ends up with the best product being offered instead of offering something just because it has more backing from the upper management, more market share, or some other lesser reason. At least in the case of many of Sun's better products they are open source, so those products aren't going anywhere.

[Ex-Cyber]

I can imagine IBM positioning SPARC as the "open source" CPU option with a broader range of consulting/customization services for smaller customers while keeping PowerPC around for bigger customers... maybe wishful thinking, but it will be interesting to see what happens in any case.

[curaga]

I've wanted the Niagara ever since it was announced *drool*
But, sparcs just aren't available. Or affordable

[Wyatt]

GPL ZFS? Why, yes!

You know, because we really need more filesystems in the Linux kernel.

[KDesk]

Wyatt, oh, yes, you are right! ZFS! DTrace! GPL! Would be very good! Who knows... So many things Sun has..

[Saist]

I can imagine IBM positioning SPARC as the "open source" CPU option with a broader range of consulting/customization services for smaller customers while keeping PowerPC around for bigger customers... maybe wishful thinking, but it will be interesting to see what happens in any case.

That's a really interesting viewpoint to have...

Of course, where things could get really interesting is IBM shipping boxes equipped with Niagara, Cell, AND Opteron's in one motherboard package. Would be a dynamite integrated server for small office / home offices, capable of handling any task. Given that Opteron + Cell is a reality now, as RoadRunner proved, I don't think it's that much of a stretch to add another architecture into the mix.

Of course, the only operating system architecture of harnessing that power is... Linux / Unix. Can you imagine the sweat beads such a combination would be giving Microsoft?

Wishful thinking as well, but IBM's shown they aren't stupid, so if they did pick up Sun, I can see that integration occuring shortly afterwards.

[DeepDayze]

IBM and Sun would be quite a powerhouse indeed. HP would also be sweating considering the powerful hardware a combined Sun/IBM could put out. Certainly Microsoft will feel a lot of heat as well. IBM definitely has a long and storied history of putting out some astounding hardware, and so did Sun.

IBM could definitely put out some really powerful servers that are within reach of small companies

[alazyworkaholic]

AFAIK Sun is the major sponsor of OpenOffice.org. What would happen to its development if Sun gets bought out? I've been a little worried about what might happen since Sun's market has been crunched by Linux. Would this be good or bad for OOo?

[zinovsky]

I think if IBM buy SUN we will see bye bye to some important open sources

[Wyatt]

I think if IBM buy SUN we will see bye bye to some important open sources

Such as? IBM's record with OSS isn't too shabby, really, and things that have been released don't just go away when the company folds; it's something that belongs to the community. I feel personally that this is, perhaps, the single most compelling reason to adopt open software and standards.