2) I don’t think Sparc technology can be ported to Power .

3) I admire some of Solaris technologies like FMD, dtrace, zones, zfs etc. but the truth is that AIX has them also and I believe IBM has the edge here.

4) What entry point ? have you heard of db2 or Informix ? :)

6) Storage ? IBM is the largest seller of storage equipment, have your heard about DS4000, DS6000, DS8000, ESS ( all IBM hardware) ?

7) IBM doesn’t need Sun for tape …

IBM never needed Sun, that’s why the deal never came through, after analyzing Sun’s assets they minimized their offer because they realized SUN is pretty useless to them. ( besides total ownership of Java and maybe some customers that would eventually move to IBM products)

IBM to buy Sun for IP. That makes more sense. There would be value in:
1) Ownership of Java … IBM is already the world’s largest Java consultancy.
2) Leveraging Coolthreads technology … combining Coolthreads with PowerPC would be formidable.
3) Solaris … IBM is already the largest reseller of Solaris. Bury AIX and make Solaris their standard.
4) MySQL … what a lovely entry point. In the database world, IBM has already shown their ability to monetize acquisitions.
5) SunFed … Sun has deep roots in the Federal space. SunFed alone, would be a valuable business.
6) Storage … Sun has finally started to make waves with Thumper. IBM could jettison their NetApp partnership and cut out the middleman.
7) Tape … believe it or not, tape is still alive and well and won’t be going anywhere for a LONG LONG time.

I’m sure there are many more examples than these. There are also all sorts of interesting “experiments” that IBM could monetize (Blackbox, ZFS, etc. etc.).

No, I don’t think IBM is in it just to take out a competitor. Sun has just been mismanaged to the point of becoming an inexpensive acquisition. IBM (or Cisco or anyone else) would be foolish to pass up this opportunity.

I agree with you. Actually, I would think Sun has more in common with Cisco as compared to IBM, as far as cultures are concerned. IBM is a more buttoned down blue suited East Coast kind of company. Cisco is more like Sun in that they both have their roots in Silicon Valley

This makes me wonder if Cisco has something else in mind. With UCS, they are targeting a market which is at present niche and they must be expecting it to grow by leap and bounds and they believe that Sun’s installed base and most of its technology will not add transformationak value in the space. Almost everyone is new to Cloud and no one yet knows what will eventually lead to nirvana for cloud.

Further the way IT market is coming off age, its turning that behemoths like HP and IBM have added quite a lot of breadth and depth to their portfolio. Everything said and done they are the strongest contenders to own the datacenter of the future.

At present the behemoths are exerting influence and potentially weakening the niche players(Cisco including) with their might(promoting proprietry products + endevours of making them best in class). The road ahead appears blocked till niche players come together combining their strengths and creating a formidable competitor (they will HP and IBM to join but will make effors to avoid them). Cisco with its leading networking and strong balance sheet might think itself as being perfect for exploiting this partnership. This option of having multiple permutations and combinations gives customers opportunity to choose the best fit and having it under one umbrella with can be a potential inflection point. The biggest challenge will be coordination and running the show which Cisco hopes it will be able to do.

So Sun acquisition and its portfolio will somehow affect Cisco’s plans as firstly Sun is losing market share and it might not be able to turn it around as it just has cash but no experience in Sun’s primary markets or presence in emerging countries etc. Sun will definately be a drain on cash on one hand and what it will make Cisco is more like HP and IBM but comparitively weaker. Cisco thinking that it smarter will like to avoid the scenario. Not acquiring Sun gives it perfect opportunity to partner companies which can add value and Cisco can just pick up perfect fit.

MAYBE thats why Cisco is not acquiring SUN

This makes me wonder if Cisco has something else in mind. some of my random thoughts on this here http://mydistortedeyes.blogspot.com/

I hope these all end up as rumors and/or the talks fall apart. Besides cultural differences, there is too much duplicity in the product lines. And as far as buying them for their clients, Sun clients are clients due to Sun technological superiority. IBM sells to execs. IBM, HP and Dell customers are herd mental clients. A number of Sun clients won’t buy from IBM unless the Sun culture and products are completely intact. And I don’t see how that could happen with such duplicity in products.

Did you buy their stock at 3.00 dollars?

Main issue has been product innovation based on technology innovation within Sun, implies bad execution. What’s the point of having a huge product portfolio when core line isn’t improving.

Sun needs new management (run by someone with an eye on selling the wonderfully engineered products) and marketing. The technology is better than it has ever been and the sales organization (below the VP level) is strong.