Cloud is a shift from the focus on underlying technology implementation to leveraging existing implementations and further building upon them. Cloud orchestration or a network of clouds is the wave of the future where these clouds can operate with elasticity, scalability, and efficiency. Effective service management is an important aspect of managing such networks. The transition to the cloud will enable the further aggregation of composite web services and enhanced business-to-business capabili...| By Maureen O'Gara | Article Rating: |
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| April 20, 2009 02:45 PM EDT | Reads: |
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In a brilliant retrieve from the really nasty situation it was in after its deal to get bought by IBM fell apart, Sun surprised everybody who thought it had no options left – which was practically everybody – by turning up this morning with a deal to get bought by Oracle, Sun’s sometimes best friend. Oracle, Silicon Valley’s avaricious maw, agreed over the weekend to buy Sun for $9.50 a share, a total of $7.4 billion or $5.6 billion less Sun’s cash and debt.
un chairman Scott McNealy called the marriage of the “two titans” a “momentous day” that “refines the industry.” The Sun deal is not as big as Oracle’s acquisition of PeopleSoft, BEA or Siebel but gives Sun a 42% premium to last Friday’s $6.69 close.
The money is a bit sweeter than the $9.40 a share IBM had reportedly ultimately offered, but failed to reach the $10.50 neighborhood where IBM and Sun supposedly started talking.
McNealy & Ellison in a "Town Meeting" - January 2006
The Sun board has already blessed the deal, as one might imagine.
Oracle, which was reportedly only approached Thursday evening, had no time for the due diligence IBM reportedly did but it did run the numbers. It claims that Sun will contribute 15 cents to its earnings on a non-GAAP basis the first full year after closing, an event that’s supposed to happen this summer.
Oracle has none of the antitrust baggage that might have threatened and at least endlessly delayed an IBM-Sun acquisition and the Oracle-Sun deal unleashes a new animal into the marketplace that IBM might find has claws.
It lets Oracle – soon to be a combination of best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems – in effect a mini- IBM – vertically integrate database to disk – at a time when data is king – and have everything fit together so its customers’ own integration costs go down – important right now – while system performance, reliability and security should go up.
Oracle co-president Charles Phillips remarked that Oracle’s “largest customers have been asking us to step up to a broader role to reduce complexity, risk and cost by delivering a highly optimized stack based on standards.”
He said Oracle might now turn out pre-packaged segment-specific machines that were the “complete industry in a box.”
Despite Sun’s horrendous string of losses, Oracle figures it can run Sun at a profit – which suggests a big remake at Sun – and that it will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle’s non-GAAP operating profits year one, increasing to over $2 billion in year two. The thought had Oracle CEO Larry Ellison obviously licking his lips on the early-morning conference call, which included no Q&A.
Oracle president Safra Catz said the Sun acquisition would be more profitable per share in year one than Oracle had planned for its BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel acquisitions combined.
The Sun acquisition gives Oracle control of Java, the basis of Oracle’s all-important Fusion software and a component in literally billions of devices. Ellison called it “the most important software Oracle has ever acquired.” Oracle said it will ensure continued investment and innovation in the widgetry.
IBM has a vested interested in Java, so that’s a threat.
The deal also gives Oracle Solaris, which happens to be the leading platform for Oracle’s database. Linux is Oracle’s second most popular platform. Oracle said it can now optimize its database for some of Solaris’ unique, high-end features.
Oracle gave few details of what of Sun’s will survive. It said nothing, for instance, about the rival open source MySQL database that Sun spent a billion dollars to buy. Having about as little use for Microsoft as the old Sun, Oracle might put some effort into OpenOffice.
However, it did suggest that Sun’s Sparc machines might survive – at least for the time being – and contemplated converging storage, networking and computing driven by the Solaris. Its focus, Ellison said, will be on joint customers.
It is unclear what will happen to McNealy or Sun’s pony-tailed CEO Jonathan Schwartz.
Published April 20, 2009 Reads 12,823
Copyright © 2009 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.
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Maureen O'Gara the most read technology reporter for the past 20 years, is the Cloud Computing and Virtualization News Desk editor of SYS-CON Media. She is the publisher of famous "Billygrams" and the editor-in-chief of "Client/Server News" for more than a decade. One of the most respected technology reporters in the business, Maureen can be reached by email at maureen(at)sys-con.com or paperboy(at)g2news.com, and by phone at 516 759-7025. Twitter: @MaureenOGara
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The focus of Java EE 7 is on the cloud, and specifically it aims to bring Platform-as-a-Service providers and application developers together so that portable applications can be deployed on any cloud infrastructure and reap all its benefits in terms of scalability, elasticity, multitenancy, etc. The existing specifications in the platform such as JPA, Servlets, EJB, and others will be updated to meet these requirements.
Java EE 7 continues the ease of development push that characterized prior ...
With Cloud Expo 2012 New York (10th Cloud Expo) just four months away, what better time to start introducing you in greater detail to the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference...
We have technical and strategy sessions for you every day from June 11 through June 14 dealing with every nook and cranny of Cloud Computing and Big Data, but what of those who are presenting? Who are they, where do they work, what else h...
Wide and cheap availability of cloud-based media services is upon us. With the transformations these services are already bringing to the consumption of music, video and interactive media, change has likewise come to professional workflows. Documents in 2012 are read, written, collaborated on, and distributed anywhere an Internet-enabled device can reach – which is to say, everywhere.
In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Christopher Kenneally, Director of Business Development a...
I've been working on Enterprise Cloud Strategy and in the course of this work identified some interesting and non-obvious opportunities in the Cloud.
One solution I’ve examined is the well-crafted solution that is enStratus. enStratus has built a SaaS Cloud Management / Governance product focused on providing critical management, monitoring, governance capabilities tailored to the needs of the Global 2000 market, rather than the startup market. As I have worked with a current Fortune 500 clie...
With Cloud Expo 2012 New York (10th Cloud Expo) now under four months away, what better time to start introducing you in greater detail to the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference...
We have technical and strategy sessions for you every day from June 11 through June 14 dealing with every nook and cranny of Cloud Computing and Big Data, but what of those who are presenting? Who are they, where do they work, what e...
2011 was a year of rapid adoption for public and private cloud services. Instant and on-demand server provisioning was the driving force behind the massive growth. On top, cloud server templates and script automation simplified application installation for simple and pre-defined application stacks, but have not targeted more complex enterprise application environments.
In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, John Yung, CEO of Appcara, will discuss how 2012 will be the year for app...
"Having been in the IT field for many years, I believe the cloud computing chapter in the industry is an exciting one and I am proud to be a part of it," said National Reconaissance Office (NRO) Chief Information Officer Jill T. Singer Tuesday, as it was announced that she was one of 10 winners of the 2012 CloudNOW "Top Ten Women in Cloud" Awards.
As more enterprises are adopting clouds, the nature of cloud computing is changing. Previously, clouds were used to test applications or for non-mission critical applications. Today, enterprises are using clouds for cost-saving advantages and launching more mission critical applications that have defined performance needs.
In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Eric Shepcaro, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Telx, will discuss how distributed computing has many advantages. It wou...
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