Sound off with your thoughts on Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems here!
Personally.... I think Sun WAS a company with huge potential, huge cash on hand and the ability to out think everyone.
Then, it fell apart and the LOST it all. While I don't like it... Sun KILLED THEMSELVES... Sun had everything except the ability to execute on a vision... well, arguably, they lack a vision to execute on.
I'm just glad they opened the Solaris source before it happened. Maybe they figured something was coming; not really that unexpected with how(and what) they've been doing.
Beyond that, well, Java's failed to take over the world for a very long time now, so Sun's just been selling Sun-branded Opteron servers lately, anyone can do that. It does make me wonder what'll become of Sun Java though. If Oracle tries to turn it into some sort of cash cow(more than it is already, I mean; let's see how many more opt-out explorer toolbars they can cram in to the default install) it could be the final nail in its coffin.
I don't want to believe it myself but sun has really lost a lot of market share, it used to be in the 90's one could see sun installations everywhere, today many sites already ported over to HP or IBM or switched to wintel or worse vm servers. VM servers will the nail in the coffin that will doom sys admins everywhere. But anyway I'm seeling less of sun than I used to. I'm thinking sun is very lucky they acquired mysql recently.
Mysql is built like oracle, a lot of commands in mysql resemble oracle. Why would oracle want to continue to distribute mysql for free and lose their own market share? Doesn't make any sense I got a feeling one of the reasons why oracle buys sun is to kill mysql later on.
I think its better Oracle than IBM. I think if IBM bought Sun they would have tried to kill Solaris and MySQL in favor of their own products. I hope some of Sun's products don't go the way of the dodo. I like working with ALOM/ILOM, OBP, and Solaris.
They'll have a real hard time putting the cat back in the bag, it'd be like Novell trying to recall Linux.
I think it's a strange tie up.
Not least because the only software Oracle would want from Sun is Java; and because Oracle doesn't make hardware.
We already have Unbreakable-Oracle, based on Red Hat, I think, and Solaris is unquestionably the most reliable, robust operating system on the planet, but I just (very sadly) don't see a future for Solaris, and I don't know why a tie-up with Oracle would either change their (Oracle's) roadmap, or swing the general way of things amongst consumers that Linux was not the way ahead.
Bad management has brought Sun almost to its knees - the OpenSource experminent hasn't worked (at least not in the way Sun intended it) and they're losing market share.
I'm not against the tie-up (and who would listen if I was?) but I just don't see how it will work... but time will tell...
In any case, the OS will have a fan-base forever, probably, and when it's really open - as opposed to now, where it isn't. it could prosper again.
This merger is a good thing in my opinion.
Here is why:
Monopoly-like dominancies in IT market are our reality today.
If you open your eyes, you will see, that you do not have the choice
between OpenSource everywhere and some commercial IT companies.
Not in commercial IT (which is where IT industry gets the money from,
to pay for research and development).
You only have the choice between N big companies or N+1.
I always prefer N+1, because every new big player against IBM and Microsoft (or HP in the server market) is welcome.
Without the merger it will be N-1 (Sun will not survive).
I think the example of DEC should be a warning to us all. The formerly most innovative IT company has been sold to a
boring PC vendor (Compaq) which in turn has been sold to an even more boring convenience store (HP).
The result is that IT customers choose mostly between IBM, HP only in server market and between MS and IBM in appserver market and so on.
This is not enough, because thus the best or most innovative products are rarely choosen.
No boost of knowledge, no further development, and so on.
Like these Windows Desktops, everywhere you look.
To simply GIVE UP and declare that all business, large or small, should cash in to aid the very few remaining mega-monopolies is simply un-American. I like small business and still believe in innovation. Simply said, Sun GAVE UP. They didn't even try to make it... they were tired and the high execs cashed in. Remember, NOBODY else at Sun actually benefits from this move... not the employees, not the customers... nobody.
So... what about Wall St.? Oddly enough, this benefits only a small percentage as well. Sun has lost over 75% of its valuation due to McNealy and Schwrtz... basically, the investors were apparently told a story... they bought that story... that story was not true, and now they simply want out with a little bit of their original investment... but it's likely that everyone is pretty upset. People are lazy, I believe it they were not lazy, they might not have rubber stamped the deal from Oracle.
Sun is dead... Sun technology is dead... and Larry now has my next vote for next CEO failure. We'll see, but I think this move might be the dumbest acquisition in history. Bye bye Larry.
I disagree completely. But I am an old guy and do not have your ideals anymore. OpenSource will not be harmed by this merger, no way. Community products will come and go like before. Lets see, I vote for Larry, you don't.
My only hope is, that IBM people do not go to the funeral before the body lies in the coffin. They will be heavily disappointed when the body, which is supposed to be dead, jumps directly in their face 
So I was right, the deal to buy sun was to kill mysql because mysql gaining a lot of oracle converts. So oracle got wind of it and to had to stop it somehow ... but now the deal hit an EU snag ... sounds like a movie script ... drama drama ... 
see sun's secret "Project Peter", download the pdf file.
may I carefully remind here that almost all breakthrough inventions in the past and present had been made by Big Blue that still holds most of these patents? There would be no tape, no disk, without them ... And that they still put roughly 50% of their net income into development of new innovations?
Open Source is not the answer to everything, and neither is an IT world with just the big players in it ... in the Unix world every derivate has its pro's and con's ... and I really doubt that this Oracle-Sun deal will keep solaris alive at all - what is a shame. Maybe a fate like being bought by IBM or HP would have been not so final. Nobody knows.
Regards
zxmaus
I think some of you are notorious pessimists.
Oracle has contributed very much to the Open Source already (think of the ADF contribution to the Apache Foundation), and it has pushed MySQL in the past by giving them InnoDB. It is still pushing Php and other open technologies and do not forget that Oracle has named Open Source Unixes like Linux and Open Solaris their strategic platforms, which helped especially Linux vendors very much (although Oracle Linux has only little market share compared to Red Hat and Novell) and which has even helped to damage the #1 Unix vendor Sun very much. Now they will not need to do that anymore, they can use the best technologies instead of need to compete against them. 
I wouldn't expect Oracle to kill any of the Open Source products they own, rather I expect them to be able to make revenue with it. And that is absolutely legal and morally correct. They have to feed nearly 100.000 employed people and their families and they are liable for the quality of their products.
As some of you said, Open Source is not everything. I go further and say, it only makes sense if it is integrated in the value creation chain.
Some said, IBM would have been a better recepton camp for MySQL.
NO, IBM is not the advocate of the Open Source community. Just the opposite. They just use the community as cheap labour to compete against companies who still invent own things with own employees. And although IBM had invented many things in the past (but not half as much as one of you said, it i.e. was DEC, who invented most of the dialogue orientated computing. the client server paradigm and clusters and things we are using nowadays and Xerox and Apple and Sun and so on, but not IBM), todays IBM has thinned out their own technological divisions very much, by selling most of these things they had invented to China and other countries which provide cheap labour. Mind, they are not like others, building new divisions in these countries. No they preferred to sell everything to China, not being liable for the work conditions there and not being liable for product quality, environmental compliances and so on. But their main reason was, that technology in general is not creating revenue fast enough and that labour is not anymore regarded as valueable. This means IBM just neglects all ideals most of the Open Source people have. IBM is no more than a bank today. They act like a bank would act. Their boss is a banker not a technologist. All their strategies are typical banker's strategies, heading for one thing: abolish competitors , abolish free market, abolish thinking customers with own IT staff, turning customers into addicts. And occasional good deeds are just done for positive publicity. If they would have been able to to have it their way always, we would still be using punch tapes or punch cards, believe me. Don't take my word for it, there are many books about IBM, which are worth reading. I especially like reading about their entanglement with the Nazis and their assistance with the annihilation of millions of people. 
That is long ago, but somehow IBM still smells of it, more than any other company in the world. You can see their hidden ideals also from their effort in artificial intelligence projects. They are still trying to invent the Superman, like Nietzsche and Hitler did. Some kind of humanoid maybe, that is only wanting to use z/OS and punch cards and that is happy to annihilate all the normal human beings to achieve that great benefaction.
