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The Oracle Sun deal – Set to be a scorcher?
May 5th, 2009 Atos Blog Tags: Current Affairs, ERP, IBM, Java, JavaOne, MySQL, open office, open source, Oracle, Solaris, Sun
Posted in Technology |
Does the deal make sense?
This is a landmark event in the IT world for many reasons, not least that it is the first major takeover of a hardware vendor by a software company – almost a reverse takeover. Looking forward to Oracle’s future plans for this it is unclear whether this forms part of a grander plan to take on the likes of IBM and HP as all round providers.
But for today, there are clear advantages for Oracle, and for Sun:
» It secures a home for Java and Sun’s Open Source products.
» It significantly improves Oracle’s product portfolio and should mean an increased share of the corporate wallet for Oracle – though this is a two-edged sword – already I have heard rumblings about over-reliance on a single supplier. Some of the Sun products are not significantly high profile, especially Storage, and I would not expect to see another Data Appliance offering from Oracle given the poor showing last time.
» It secures a future for a world-class operating system – Solaris – that seemed to be entering its last days. This is very good news for customers who have significant investments in Solaris. It also slows the demise of the SPARC chipset and gives a lifeline to existing Sun hardware customers, giving a breathing space to beef up the x86 product offerings.
So yes, it would seem to make sense Oracle, Sun and the rest of us.
Java – Commercialise or Set Free?
Sun never really made much money from Java and efforts from Oracle to do the same may similarly founder. It may be that Oracle do what Sun could never allow themselves to do – finally liberate Java and release it control of Java to the Java Community.
Java is key to the future of Oracle’s software business, they will have to re-visit the Oracle/BEA technology roadmap once more to accommodate and assimilate the various Sun products – this could lead to further confusion amongst Oracle’s customer base driving migrations towards IBM Websphere or Red Hat JBOSS if clarity is not achieved – it is vital that this activity is completed as soon as possible.
Java is also key to a number of other vendors – not least IBM. Sun learned that to avoid a balkanisation of the Java market consensus had to be achieved, I hope that Oracle do not upset this consensus. Java is also important to other vendors, such as SAP – the major competitor to Oracle’s ERP stable – SAP have been getting closer to Microsoft & SQL Server at the low-end and IBM DB2 at the high end of customer installations – I would expect to see this process quicken.
JavaOne in June this year is going to be the most important for many years.
Open Source, Open Office and MySQL
Oracle have been safe hands for Berkley DB and other Open Source tools, but hardly a major force like say IBM. The acquisition of Sun makes Oracle a serious player, not least because of the control of Java.
MySQL. In the Open Source community this is THE story, but I don’t think MySQL was really an immediate threat to the database hegemony of Oracle in the short to medium term. It remains to be seen what Oracle intend to do with MySQL – so far there have been a lot of positive noises from them (to admittedly a highly cynical and suspicious audience). Enough of the core MySQL engineers had already left Sun to ensure a future for MySQL through the various new offerings popping up (Drizzle for example), and the skills exodus is likely to quicken unless Oracle can convince them to stay. I think if Oracle is serious they will need to be seen to be over-delivering in this area, otherwise they really should let it go.
OpenOffice
Oracle has really been absent from the clamour towards Cloud Computing, I would expect that the acquisition of StarOffice/OpenOffice will lead to an Oracle Cloud offering in the very near future – this would be a serious competitor to the Microsoft/Amazon/Google push – I would expect Oracle to focus on Corporate rather than Consumer markets. Given that Office is one of Microsoft’s biggest earners I would expect investments in OpenOffice to accelerate rather than fall.
Only time will tell if this takeover is a catalyst to future world domination or just a bold attempt to keep Sun from the grim reaper….
Trying to double guess a large corporation’s product stategy is a tricky proposition.
Will Oracle neglect the Open Source responsibilities you would think are entailed in the Sun acquisition? Will Oracle use the MySQL product set to make inroads into business loss incurred with every SQL Server installation?
Will they leverage the Java space and finally present an integrated OracleDB/BEA/Java/Open Source/Hardware/Kitchen Sink offering that will extend their market share? That is what acquisitions are usually about.
I can’t see Oracle mothballing these significant lines of business.
As Johnny Nash said, “There are more questions than answers”, which leads to defining integrators’ approaches that can contain any likely outcome of Oracle’s approach and strategy.
My guess is that agility will be the key, having a foot in many camps: Standard Oracle E Business Suite offerings, Workflow via Aqua Logic, Warehousing using Warehouse Builder, integration with Java/OracleDB etc etc etc. Niche operation in this space may not be viable for any reasonably sized company.
I will give a pound to the first architect who works on a project involving Oracle, Aqua Logic(or its equivalent BPEL clone) and Java in a cloud environment. For the time being Legacy Rules OK ?
This acquisition poses many questions. Any comment must be qualified by the fact that the deal has to close and be acceptable to regulators.
The future of MySQL must be in question – at the least Oracle can be expected to charge more for it – and logically Oracle would not want to support a product that directly competes with its flagship database. Oracle’s position with Linux will also be interesting given that they see Solaris as a major reason for the acquisition.
Although Oracle is not terribly interested in the hardware, the vast majority of Solaris installations are on SPARC processors rather than x86. The answers to these questions will become clear in coming months – until then it might be prudent to avoid new deployments of MySQL and SPARC devices.
Both open office and microsoft office are pretty much end of life technology. Oracle’s interest in open office could be a foot in the door for large managed operations deals?
This looks to be a pre-emptive response to the looming threat caused by cloud computing allowing smaller operators to join together and threaten the likes of Oracle.
An all-in-one would appeal to big business and the security conscious – who could then use Oracle as an alternative to cloud. Smaller operators could take advantage of cloud, but mid-sized organisations will be faced with a difficult choice… highly priced all-in-ones or high risk from cheaper cloud alternatives…