Now that the world has got their bit of IT news bytes (Oracle to buy out Sun @ 7.4 B USD), let me try to make some sense out of the deal...
Why is Oracle suddenly interested in Sun (specially when they went that road halfway in 2003/4)? Though the world is directing the pointer to IBM, I have a suspicion that Oracle is gonna use Sun to fight Microsoft in a more strategic direction..
For Oracle the biggest assets from Sun would be Java and OpenOffice. Owning the future directions of Java (ya I know its in the Open world but even Open Source directions can be controlled by the biggies..look at Eclipse and IBM) gives Oracle a direct way of competing with Microsoft (with the .Net world). Also Oracle would have a great business proposition when they drive the Fusion road map (and internally build Fusion components on Java and XML). Obviously Oracle has a few tools (e.g: BAM) which are non Java based but we can safely say that these are just outliers which would be removed in medium term.
With OpenOffice, Oracle can play the biggest attack on Microsoft. MS is directly integrating MS Office to its ERP (Dynamics) components (e.g: MS CRM has a tight integration and UI look and feel of an MS Office tool). Oracle can integrate OpenOffice to its ERP components (Fusion Architecture comes to play but in a much tighter coupling) and provide a huge value add to its customers.
Where does this leave SAP and IBM vis-a-vis Oracle. I think Oracle will build a ref architecture using SUN Solaris and StorgeTek and also build Sun's cloud infra to build the next generation data center and SAAS offerings.
Obviously SAP would be looking very closely at the SAAS story and IBM would look at the NGDC.
The biggest loser in this deal would be MySQL and Sun's MW Tools (including GlassFish). Forget Netbeans and SPARC too (Though SPARC and some other HW divisions can be spun off to other parties). Another interesting option in the HW world would be Appliancees (Application bundled with standard Hadrware). A few gurus have already started chanting the AOA word (Appliance Oriented Architecture). Not surprisingly Oracle seems to be in a great position to drive the AOA future!
Seems Oracle is all set for the next round of the battle...It's FIRE...READY...AIM time again (apologies to Tom Peters)...beware HP...IBM...Microsoft (isn't it ironical that you can skip to mention SAP in this?.Oracle has surely progressed from a focused SAP fight to a much wider strategic direction of IT mindshare)
May we all live in exciting times!
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