OpenSolaris ported to ARM chips

Sun Microsystems' OpenSolaris project has quietly announced the operating system that just added support for Sparc has now been ported to ARM - commonly used in embedded devices, handhelds and, increasingly, netbooks.
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It is perhaps an indication of how just stressful things are at Sun these days, with the $5.6bn acquisition by Oracle hanging over it combined with what's shaping up as terrible fiscal fourth-quarter results coming ahead of the crucial July 16 vote by shareholders on the Oracle deal, that no one at Sun or OpenSolaris mentioned the ARM port was coming when announcing OpenSolaris 2009.06 last week.

The leader for the ARM port of OpenSolaris is William Kucharski, who leads the PowerPC and container development efforts for Solaris and who is also the leader of the port to IBM's System z mainframes.

IBM and Sun made some noise about this mainframe port last November when IBM finally and officially sanctioned the deployment of OpenSolaris on mainframe engines configured originally to run Linux. Since then, this Sirius variant of OpenSolaris has gone about as far as the Polaris port for Power iron: just this side of nowhere.

Late last year, Sun announced that OpenSolaris was supported on Intel's Atom processors.

It is hard to imagine there is a lot of room for OpenSolaris on the kinds of devices served bv Atom-based processors, a market where Linux is finding a home and Windows could extend its existing PC hegemony. Linux is being customized by many different projects - there's Google's Android and Intel's Moblin for netbooks and possibly for so-called "smartbooks" - plus the question of whether Microsoft will port the Windows client operating system commonly found on laptops and desktops to ARM. Windows Mobile already runs on ARM-based phones.

Then again, a good device can drive the operating systems’ sale. Look at the iPhone. End users and consumers buying these new classes of computers don't really care what the operating system is, even if the vendor does. And that means OpenSolaris might have a better chance on netbooks and smartbooks and other devices than it does on the desktop.

Of course, this would have to be true by definition, since OpenSolaris has very little chance on desktops outside of the Solaris developer community.

One problem with OpenSolaris on ARM-based machines is the relative lack of applications. OpenSolaris 2009.06 has 1,700 applications, as this review of the operating system at Ars Technica correctly pointed out, a lot lower than the 26,000 packages in the Ubuntu repository, for example.

While the OpenSolaris repository has most of what developers need to create code as part of their day jobs or hobbies, ARM-based machines are all about end-user applications.

The OpenSolaris ARM port, as you can see from the updated OpenSolaris 2008.05 release notes, is actually based on the initial 2008.05 Project Indiana release of OpenSolaris, which is now two releases behind.

The ARM port is specifically for NEC's NaviEngine 1 multicore system-on-chip ARM processor and a reference board outlined in the release notes. There’s no word on when the ARM port will catch up and be part of the standard releases, or when other ARM chips and products will get support.

-----------------------------
BY Timothy Prickett Morgan
Source：The Register

© Copyright 1998–2009.

Sun and Qualcomm Collaborate to Optimize Smartbooks

Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Qualcomm Incorporated today announced the early-access release of Java(TM) Platform Standard Edition 6 (Java SE 6) ported to Qualcomm's innovative Snapdragon(TM) ARM-based processor. This release optimizes Java application performance and power management for Snapdragon-powered smartbooks. A free evaluation copy of this release is available for download at http://java.sun.com/javase/embedded/.
##CONTINUE##
ebizQ received the following:

Sun and Qualcomm worked together for nearly a year to port a complete, optimized, and standard version of the Java SE platform onto the Snapdragon platform. Sun's implementation of the Java(TM) Virtual Machine (JVM (TM)) has been optimized for Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipsets – running over 32x faster than earlier Java SE implementations on ARM-based chipsets. The combination of Java SE and the Snapdragon platform provides a rich Internet and media experience with full web browsing capabilities along with day-long battery life and ubiquitous, real-time connectivity via Wireless Wide-Area Network (WWAN), Wi-Fi and/or Bluetooth technology. On this platform, Java technology will deliver thousands of personal productivity, social graph, and entertainment applications optimized for great performance on Snapdragon.

“We are very pleased to have reached this milestone release,” said Eric Klein, vice president of Java Software Marketing at Sun. “Delivering an optimized Java SE release for this exciting new Qualcomm hardware platform enables customers, developers, and OEM partners to leverage the power of Java and JavaFX(TM) software on smartbooks, enjoying consistent access to their Java software content and applications they use at work and at home. This release also demonstrates Sun's commitment to custom engineering services that provide partners like Qualcomm with quality solutions and rapid time to market.”

“Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform is enabling a new class of devices that fundamentally redefine mobility, and by offering the Java SE platform on our Snapdragon products, our OEM partners are in a better position to deliver a compelling and consistent Java user experience on these smartbooks,” said Rob Chandhok, vice president of software strategy for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. “As Java technology is used throughout social networking, media, and merchandising sites, we believe that a full Java SE port is an important factor in delivering on our vision for smartbooks.”

Smartbooks are a new class of devices that bridge the functional divide between smartphones and laptops, delivering the best aspects of a smartphone experience on a larger-display form-factor. Constantly connected via 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS, smartbooks are ultra-portable, personalizable, easy-to-use, and last all day on a single battery charge. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform has a unique combination of capabilities that makes it exceptionally competitive in the smartbook category, which is redefining mobility for consumers at productivity and play.

More information on Sun's Java software for embedded devices and engineering services for delivering binary and optimized implementations of the Java SE platform is available at: http://java.sun.com/javase/embedded/. For more information on JavaFX, visit http://javafx.com.

More information about the new Qualcomm Snapdragon series of processors can be found here: http://www.qctconnect.com/snapdragon.

-----------------------------
BY ebizQ Staff
Source：ebizQ

Copyright © ebizQ. All rights reserved.

Sun Enhances OpenSolaris OS For Virtualization Tasks

Advanced virtualization capabilities and new networking technologies top the list of the enhancements in OpenSolaris 2009.06, a new release of the open-source version of Sun Microsystem's Solaris operating system.
##CONTINUE##
Sun debuted the new release Monday at its 2009 CommunityOne West conference in San Francisco.

Oracle (NSDQ:ORCL) is in the process of buying Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion and the Solaris operating system, the platform for a lot of Oracle software, is a critical driver of the acquisition.

As businesses try to take advantage of the growing range of virtualization hardware and software products, networking often has been "the laggard" in the technology stack, said Charlie Boyle, product marketing director for data center software at Sun.

OpenSolaris 2009.06 includes networking technology developed under the name Project Crossbow which, for the first time, offers networking capabilities designed for virtualization, according to Sun. Under Project Crossbow, the operating system provides virtual network interfaces that work in combination with multicore, multithreaded processors, Sun said.

The new OpenSolaris release provides enhancements in its storage management capabilities, adding flash storage support to Sun's ZFS file system technology for managing the large-scale pools of high-performance storage often found in virtualized environments. The OS also offers native support for the Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) CIFS file system, a move that allows transparent use of files across Windows, Linux and Solaris systems, Sun said.

Sun also has expanded its SunSpectrum Support portfolio of services for OpenSolaris subscriptions.

-----------------------------
BY Rick Whiting
Source：ChannelWeb

Copyright © 2009 United Business Media LLC.

After Sun, Is Red Hat the Next Takeover Candidate?

Jefferies & Co. analyst Katherine Egbert believes Red Hat Inc. (NYSE:RHT) is a likely takeover candidate, especially following Oracle Corp.'s (NASDAQ:ORCL) $7 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA).
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Egbert predicted in a recent note that if Oracle decides to not only support Sun's Solaris operating system, but promote it as an alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, then Red Hat may be forced to seek a hardware partner:

It seems inevitable Oracle will favor Solaris. While Oracle has said publicly they will continue support of RHEL, there is a sense within Red Hat that an increased focus on Open Solaris over RHEL is inevitable, as Oracle seeks to protect the declining Solaris maintenance stream. We estimate that 1/3 of Red Hat's new business comes from Unix-to-Linux migrations. The danger to Red Hat is that Oracle will offer customers attractive terms terms to stay on Solaris, potentially even paying them not to migrate.

The logic of Oracle supporting Solaris is pretty sound, given the rationale behind Oracle's purchase of Sun is to secure a hardware channel for its software. So, why wouldn't Oracle want to own the whole pie: hardware, operating system, applications and coding environments? Letting Solaris wither on the vine seems anathema to the benefits of the deal. In fact Oracle has already been trying for two years to extricate itself from the Red Hat relationship in the form of its own Linux distribution, called Oracle Unbreakable Linux, but has had limited success.

And given the market's preference of using Red Hat's operating system with Oracle's software, as well as Oracle's possible two-pronged offensive of offering customers Solaris or Unbreakable Linux, Red Hat could face a serious problem in a few years when the economy recovers and companies begin to reassess their information technology needs and possibly turn to Oracle for everything.

So if Oracle kicks Red Hat to the curb, who would be the company's white knight? Egbert suggets IBM Corp. (NYSE:IBM) as the likely buyer. Given IBM's earlier attempt to buy Sun to secure its Java programming language, Red Hat with its JBoss alternative to Java seems like a decent consolation prize -- not to mention a cheaper alternative considering Red Hat's $3.58 billion market cap based on Wednesday's market close of $18.93 a share.

-----------------------------
BY Matthew Wurtzel
Source：Seeking Alpha

Sun seeks to build world's biggest App Store around Java

Sun will vet Java apps and check them for safety and content, and will charge for distribution
##CONTINUE##
Sun Microsystems plans to launch an App Store that could make Apple's look smaller than a 7-Eleven by comparison.

The server vendor hopes to increase sales and drive more business via the Java App Store, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz wrote on his blog Monday.

Sun is in the process of being acquired by Oracle, which has expressed a strong interest in Sun's Java technology.

An app store based on Sun's Java programming language has potential because millions of software developers already create applications with Java, which has been out since the mid-1990s.

Sun estimates Java-based software applications are already in use on over 4.5 billion computers, mobile phones and other gadgets, giving Java a huge potential market.

Schwartz indicated the app store will focus on PC users and estimated the size of the community at 1 billion.

Apple's App Store, by comparison, has already seen over a billion software downloads, despite there only being around 21 million iPhones out there, according to the company's quarterly earnings reports.

The disparity in numbers shows Java's possibilities. But if the scant attention Schwartz's app store blog post has received since it went up on Monday is any indication, Sun may be hard-pressed to mimic Apple's success.

Past deals with Google and Microsoft convinced Sun a Java App Store has potential.

In 2005, Sun agreed to distribute Google's browser toolbar alongside its popular Java Runtime Environment, the software that allows Java applications to run on Windows PCs.

The Google toolbar sits atop just about any Web browser so people can type in a search there instead of going to Google's Web site. It was offered to PC users as an optional download via the Java Runtime's automatic update mechanism.

The toolbars turned out to be a significant driver of search traffic, Schwartz said, and the update mechanism proved to be a strong distribution tool.

The second year with Google, the fee the search giant paid Sun "increased dramatically," Schwartz said.

Shortly thereafter, Microsoft outbid Google for a U.S.-only distribution deal with Sun for its MSN toolbar.

"The revenues to Sun were also getting big enough for us to think about building a more formal business around Java's distribution power - to make it available to the entire Java community, not simply one or two search companies on yearly contracts," Schwartz said.

That's what the company's Java App Store, currently codenamed Project Vector, is designed to deliver.

Wilvin Chee, head of software research at IDC in the Asia Pacific, said a Java App Store holds great potential because it will bring together Java software developers and users at a one-stop-shop.

Such a store will make Java applications easier to find and ultimately lead to the development of a more Java applications, he said.

Sun plans to allow Java application developers to submit programs to a simple Web site so the company can evaluate them for safety and content before presenting them to the Java audience. Sun will charge for distribution.

The company plans to reveal more details about the Java App Store at its JavaOne conference, which opens June 2 in San Francisco, Schwartz said.

Java is a software programming language Sun developed to make the Internet and Web browsers more interactive, such as to play online games, chat with people anywhere, calculate your mortgage interest, view images in 3D and more.

-----------------------------
BY Dan Nystedt (IDG News Service)
Source：COMPUTERWORLD

Copyright 2009 IDG Communications. ABN 14 001 592 650. All rights reserved.

OpenOffice's future uncertain in light of Sun-Oracle deal

Advocates for the continued development of OpenOffice have been busy this week, coming up with plans and ideas as to where the open-source suite should head once the Oracle-Sun merger is complete. Some are calling for Oracle to make the suite independent, while others want to see the company roll up their sleeves and dive into development on their own. Oracle, however, has declined to comment on what they have planned.
##CONTINUE##
As the head of marketing for OpenOffice, John McCreesh, has issued a public statement saying that the future of OpenOffice is leading it towards becoming an independent project. He believes that having it completely detached from Oracle, both legal and in development terms, would be beneficial for OpenOffice in that it would enable them to find their own source of revenue and dictate future development on their own.

Others call for a different approach, claiming that Oracle's backing could make potential partners take it more seriously and become a stronger rival to Microsoft, as opposed to simply a free alternative. Ultimately, it’s all up to Oracle. Each proposition has its own benefits, but working independently certainly feels like the 'right' model for an open-source community.

-----------------------------
BY Justin Mann
Source：TechSpot.com

Copyright © 1998-2009 TechSpot.com
TechSpot is a registered trademark
Powered by StoryTeller
All Rights Reserved.

After Oracle's Sun takeover, what now for Java?

Now the dust has settled following Oracle's $7.4bn takeover of Sun Microsystems, Stuart Lauchlan looks at the legacy for the Java community and whether the firm has taken onboard lessons from its previous acquisition trail.
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Last week's shock announcement by Oracle that it was taking over long time partner Sun Microsystems left a number of questions in its wake, most notably the fate of Java. Will Oracle's ownership prove to be a boon or a bane to the wider Java movement? The answer will impact on the entire industry but opinions are still divided as to what degree and what the long-term effect will be.

"If Oracle closes the Sun acquisition, the Java community could see a welcome new realignment that will place realpolitik ahead of religion," reckons Tony Bear, of research house Ovum. "Based on its BEA track record, it is evident that Oracle will likely take a dispassionate look at Sun's Java technology portfolio. Rather than wage dogmatic standards battles, Oracle will look at Sun's Java stack opportunistically."

Oracle finally acquired application server firm BEA systems in April last year following a high-profile hostile takeover bid.

A change in attitude

But its not all good news. One of the major questions surrounding Oracle's proposed acquisition of Sun is the fate of the overlapping Java-based product sets. "The problem for Sun is that although it invented Java it never profited from it," argues Bear. "Over the years, Sun became so vocal on waging standards wars that it overwhelmed its Java marketing message. We expect a quieter, more market-driven approach from Oracle.

"Based on how Oracle converged BEA's products, we expect a more realistic, nuanced strategy. As with BEA, Oracle will likely dissect the Sun Java portfolio into 'strategic', 'continue and converge', and 'maintenance' buckets, based on market presence and whether Sun's products fill any gaps. Considering that Sun never successfully marketed its Java stack, we anticipate that relatively few acquired products will be deemed strategic."

Sun's previous style of leadership over the Java Community Process (JCP) chafed key members such as IBM. Using the pretext of a battle over Java development tool GUI controls, IBM spearheaded the formation of the Eclipse Foundation in 2001, marking the emergence of the first rival power centre to the JCP. Sun later responded by forming NetBeans, but in intervening years it never attained parity with Eclipse's third-party support.

Additionally, within the JCP, Sun often found itself on the wrong side of Java Specification Requests (JSRs) debates, such as an alternative component bundling specification to the widely popular OSGi or Java Business Integration (JBI), which lacked support from the two biggest Java players (IBM and then independent BEA). Outside the JCP, there was JavaFX, Sun's shot in the dark for a JVM-native rich internet client that contended with the better known Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight.

"We anticipate that Oracle will adopt a more realistic attitude towards NetBeans and Eclipse - a development that could settle this battle with a whimper rather than a bang," says Bear. "That will set the stage for more rationalised competition with IBM and JBoss/Red Hat for a development community that now has considerably more options than when IBM first spearheaded the formation of the Eclipse Foundation. Oracle's acquisition of Sun means a more realistic approach to Java portfolio and standards."

But Steven O'Grady at analyst firm Redmonk also cautions: "Oracle, like IBM, is heavily invested in a Java world, from the tools back-up to the middleware portfolio. And clearly, Oracle understands the importance of the ecosystem and is unlikely to rock the boat via draconian or dictatorial changes to the JCP. That said, it remains to be seen whether or not large Java players such as IBM will be as comfortable being strategically beholden to a clear and present danger like Oracle versus the smaller and, therefore, less threatening Sun. Could we see, for example, an IBM developer strategy that while still Java focused, incorporates rather than attacks the increasing diversity of deployment models? This acquisition is likely to have them at least asking that question."

A good Java citizen

However, Oracle has been a good Java citizen to date, suggests Gartner Group, and will be aware of the implications of rocking the boat too much. "Java is among the most valuable assets at stake in Oracle's proposed acquisition of Sun. Gartner believes that control of Java was one of the main drivers behind the deal," says Gartner Group's Massimo Pezzini. "But ownership of Java will require some diplomacy on Oracle's part. If Oracle makes over Java into a proprietary technology or dramatically increases the cost of Java licenses, it risks limiting Java's popularity and profitability. IBM, SAP and Nokia have never perceived Sun as a threat to their business in the enterprise software and mobile markets comparable to the threat potentially represented by Oracle.

The outcome, he says, could be that important Java industry participants believe Oracle has "hijacked" Java, they will strive to reduce their dependency on a technology controlled by a major competitor. "Heavily invested in Java, these companies could not afford to suddenly drop their support for it due to the large number of their customers using Java-based products and the lack of readily available alternatives," Pezzini adds. "Instead, vendors may be tempted to develop their own Java-compatible technologies."

This would raise the prospect of a fragmented Java market with different flavours. "The market could break down into the 'true' Oracle Java, IBM's derivative, an SAP variant and possibly 'open source' variants," notes Pezzini. "Such fragmentation would be catastrophic for Java as well as for Oracle, dramatically devaluating its acquisition."

But he also believes Oracle is likely to take aggressive steps to reassure the industry that it will maintain and possibly reinforce the open nature of the JCP and Java. "The IT industry values Java for its vendor-neutral and open qualities. For 15 years, users and independent software vendors have invested in Java and facilitated its adoption, due largely to the portability of Java applications across hardware platforms, operating systems, database management systems and other systems," Pezzini continues.

"Should Java technology fragment or should Oracle be perceived as 'locking in' Java to a proprietary technology, the IT industry is likely to lose its enthusiasm for Java and seek alternatives — with Microsoft as the most obvious option."

-----------------------------
BY Stuart Lauchlan, news and analysis editor
Source：MYCUSTOMER.com

Copyright © 2009 Sift Media. All rights reserved.

Sun Microsystem's String Of Losses Continues

Sun Microsystems Inc. reported a wider loss on a 20% revenue decline for its fiscal third quarter, reflecting continuing struggles in what are expected to be the computer maker's waning months as an independent company.
##CONTINUE##
Sun last week announced a surprise $7.4 billion deal to be acquired by Oracle Corp., whose bid was favored over an offer from International Business Machines Corp., people familiar with the matter say. Takeover discussions with IBM were reported last month by the Wall Street Journal.

Sun said Tuesday its net loss for the period ended March 29 was $201 million, or 27 cents a share, including a $46 million restructuring charge. In the year-earlier period, Sun reported a net loss of $34 million, or four cents a share. Revenue declined to $2.61 billion from $3.27 billion.

The numbers were worse than analysts expected, which some of them see as a sign that uncertainty about Sun's future may have led customers to stop buying in the closing days of the quarter. "There is certainly potential for that," said Bill Kreher, an analyst at Edward Jones.

Following announcement of the Oracle deal -- expected to close in the summer -- Sun said it wouldn't hold a conference call in connection with its results. The company declined further comment.

One problem for Sun, of Santa Clara, Calif., is that many of its customers come from the hard-hit financial services industry. Another is that it still leans heavily on a proprietary chip line called Sparc at a time when many customers prefer chips from Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., known by the designation x86.

Sun disclosed Tuesday that billings of high-end systems based on its Sparc chips -- the company's largest product category -- declined 28%. Billings for a category described as "other systems," which is believed to be dominated by low-end Sparc-based machines, declined 70%. Even Sun's line of x86 systems, which had been growing lately, declined 22%, the company disclosed. Billings refers to the amounts the company says it is owed for goods sold but not yet booked as revenue.

Oracle, though it says it plans to keep Sun's hardware businesses, has been most enthusiastic about software such as the Java programming technology. Sun disclosed that billings from Java rose 27% during the quarter. The most impressive growth came from a unit that includes infrastructure software and the MySQL database, whose billings increased 101%.

-----------------------------
BY DON CLARK
Source：THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Write to Don Clark at don.clark@wsj.com

Copyright ©2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

With Sun, Oracle May Be Serious About Hardware

Oracle Corp. (ORCL) hopes buying Sun Microsystems Corp. (JAVA) will "Sparc" up its business.
##CONTINUE##
Last week, Oracle, a database giant with little experience in hardware products, surprised investors when it said it would pay $7.4 billion to buy server maker Sun.

Among the key appeals of Sun: servers based on its Sparc chips, a favorite of many of Oracle's big database customers. The deal will instantly transform the Redwood City, Calif., company into the fourth-biggest company in the $53 billion server market.

The big move into hardware represents an important development in Oracle's growth strategy. By acquiring companies like PeopleSoft Inc. and Siebel Systems Inc., Oracle has become the world's largest maker of enterprise software, the programs companies use to manage everything from sales to human resources data. Now, it is aiming to branch out into the platform those programs run on, as well.

"Oracle sees this as an opportunity to complete the portfolio," says R "Ray" Wang, an analyst at research boutique Forrester.

Oracle is betting its customers will want to buy high-end servers from the same company that makes the software running on them. That model has worked for International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), which sells both computers and the software.

The company also hopes it can integrate Sun's software - the Java programming language, Solaris operating system, and MySQL database - into its own portfolio of programs. That will boost the range of products Oracle offers and allow them to use Oracle's own servers to host some of their computing.

Software accounts for roughly 10% of Sun's $14 billion in annual revenue. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company is scheduled to report earnings on Tuesday.

"Integrated computer systems, hardware and software, should be very profitable," Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison said on a conference call announcing the deal. An Oracle spokeswoman decline to comment further.

Already, investors seem to like the deal. Though Oracle shares fell on the day it was announced, they've since rebounded 3.6%. Oracle said the deal will be accretive in its first year, though analysts estimate it will compress margins, currently at 46%, by around 10 percentage points.

Many observers think Oracle shouldn't be getting into the hardware at all, and some have suggested Oracle will sell Sun's shrinking business - it has 9.3% of the server market, down from 10.6% in 2007 - the first chance it gets.

Sparc servers have lost ground to servers based on Intel Corp.'s (INTC) x86 chips. Oracle will have to pour money into research and development to keep Sparc servers relevant, an investment that could dilute margins further. Research firm Gartner warned customers to be wary of buying Sun hardware until Oracle has articulated its hardware plans.

"Oracle has to say it's committed to hardware now to maintain customer confidence," said Rick Mammone, an engineering and business professor at Rutgers University. "But there's no reason to hold onto a very low margin, competitive unit where they have little operational experience."

Indeed, Oracle may sell some of Sun's low-end servers, if only to reduce margin dilution, analysts say. But it will likely want to keep some of the hardware portfolio. That's because in addition to offering a complete package to customers, Oracle understands Sun's customers and their needs well.

Many of Sun's servers run on the Solaris operating system, for which Sun charges maintenance fees to keep up to date. Those fees are a little less than a quarter of Sun's $14 billion in annual revenue. That's a model Oracle understands well: About half of its $22.4 billion in revenue from maintenance fees for its software.

Oracle will certainly have to work hard to convince customers and investors it can be successful in this new market. But the company has a strong track record with acquisitions: The roughly $30 billion of companies it's bought since 2005 have fueled both top-line and earnings growth. With its rigor and customer focus, it could become a serious player in hardware.

-----------------------------
BY Jessica Hodgson Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES - 415-439-6455; jessica.hodgson@dowjones.com
Source：THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Copyright ©2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The downfall of Sun Microsystems

Dot-com bust, failure to embrace x86 processors ended Sun’s life as an independent company, analysts say
##CONTINUE##
Oracle's surprising US$7.4 billion deal to purchase Sun this week gives Larry Ellison and crew a big stake in the hardware market as well as control over Java and other well-known open source technologies. But it also spells the end of an independent Sun Microsystems, one of Silicon Valley's most prominent companies.

How did it all come to this for Sun, often regarded as one of IT's great innovators during its 27-year lifespan? The dot-com crash at the start of this decade is frequently cited as the beginning of the end for Sun, and for good reason. Acquisition missteps and a failure to monetize key products such as Java also hastened Sun's descent.

"The dot-com bust hurt everybody but it's arguable that Sun was hurt most of all because it had profited so much in the run up to the boom in the first place, and hadn't grown its business out as deeply as IBM and some others had," says Pund-IT analyst Charles King.

Sun's Sparc servers with the Solaris operating system were snatched up by dot-com start-ups because of their stability and flexibility in deploying various applications at affordable prices, King says.

"In the months following the bust, there was a huge amount of Sun product that was out on the street and it precluded the need for people to upgrade or purchase new equipment," King says.

Sun prized its Sparc architecture so much that it missed the industry-wide transition to x86 processors, analysts say. Sun actually did sell x86-based systems in the 1980s, but concentrated its efforts on Sparc for most of the 90s. In King's view, Sun treated x86 systems as nice toys, but not platforms that could be used to power a serious corporate data center. Sun did increase its presence in the x86 market in the years following the dot-com bust with AMD- and Intel-based servers, but it seems to have been too little, too late.

The biggest reason for Sun's downfall is "the inability to recognize the x86 open architecture, as opposed to what they were selling with the Sparc processors," says Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Brian Babineau.

Babineau also faults Sun for pursuing a "non-capitalistic strategy" by emphasizing open source, yet failing to monetize key products such as Java.

King and Babineau both point to failed acquisitions. King notes Sun's $2 billion purchase of Cobalt Networks, a server appliance vendor that was gobbled up by Sun in 2000 but never produced any real dividends for its owner.

Sun has attempted to compete in many different hardware and software markets, but is too often in third or fourth place, Babineau says. Sun bought MySQL for $1 billion in 2008, for example, challenging the database market where Oracle was already king. Sun also executed poorly in the storage market after purchasing the vendor StorageTek for $4.1 billion in 2005, Babineau says.

"There was just mismanagement," Babineau says. "They purchased so many different things over the years. It was panic and frantic at the end."

Following the dot-com crash, Sun's profits took an immediate dive. After reporting net income of $1.85 billion in fiscal 2000, that number was halved to $927 million in 2001. Sun lost $628 million in fiscal 2002 and a whopping $2.4 billion in fiscal 2003. It returned to profitability in fiscal 2007, but ultimately the company reported net losses in three of the four most recent quarters, and the sharks started circling, in a manner of speaking. IBM offered $7 billion to buy Sun, only to be rebuffed. Several analysts doubted that Sun could find another buyer after rejecting IBM, but then Oracle came calling.

One reason Sun couldn't go on in its present form is that the company had a core group of loyal customers but wasn't able to win many new accounts, King says. And for many years, when Sun's customers wanted a reliable x86 platform they had to turn to Sun's competitors.

"The history of the Valley is littered with the dried husks of companies that had great technology but didn't understand the dynamics of the commercial market they were trying to compete in," King says.

That's not to say Oracle won't be able to gain success with Sun's technology. While Sun has failed to maintain profitability, the company did pull in more than $3 billion in revenue in the most recent quarter.

Oracle is touting Java and Solaris as two key software assets that will help Oracle and Sun turn a larger profit than they could separately. Oracle, which is expected to significantly reduce Sun's expenses, predicted that Sun will bring $1.5 billion in operating profit in its first year as part of the combined company.

"Java is one of the computer industry's best-known brands and most widely deployed technologies, and it is the most important software Oracle has ever acquired," Oracle said in a statement announcing the acquisition. "The Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database, Oracle's largest business, and has been for a long time. With the acquisition of Sun, Oracle can optimize the Oracle database for some of the unique, high-end features of Solaris."

With Oracle seemingly most excited about Sun's software platforms, Babineau speculates that Oracle might ultimately sell off the hardware business. Other analysts, such as Forrester Research's James Kobielus, say Oracle should leverage its new hardware capabilities with data warehousing appliances that integrate MySQL and other Oracle databases into Sun servers.

On the whole, Oracle's announcement of the purchase was "remarkably devoid of detail," King says, so it's tough to say what the combined company will look like one or two years from now. Oracle and Sun had such tight partnerships already that dramatic changes may be the exception rather than the rule, he says.

"Frankly Oracle and Sun have worked very closely for the better part of two decades and I don't really see what the companies will be able to do as a single organization that they haven't already done as close strategic innovative partners," King says.

-----------------------------
BY Jon Brodkin (Network World)
Source：COMPUTERWORLD

Copyright 2009 IDG Communications. ABN 14 001 592 650. All rights reserved.

Oracle suits to strap on Sun's Java sandals

Along with Linux, Java's been one of the biggest boons for Oracle. It's become the anchor of Oracle's middleware and developer strategy, and - with Linux - ended Oracle's one-time dependence on Microsoft as the only alternative to IBM.
##CONTINUE##
Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin has said he does not see Oracle's commitment to Linux lessening just because it wants to take ownership of a Solaris business.

Oracle's chief executive Larry Ellison, meanwhile, noted Java's value, calling it the most important piece of software his company has ever bought. "Oracle is now able to make all of the pieces of the technology stack fit together and work well," he said

But owning Sun - creator and steward of Java - does not mean Oracle "owns" Java in the same way it's picked up other companies customers in the past. Quite the contrary: Oracle will have to convince people its intentions are good.

For the first time in any of its many acquisitions, Oracle's getting more than products and customers along with a purchase: It's getting a cause.

Oracle will step into the lead position on the Java Community Process, the body responsible for new APIs - Java Specification Requests - in Java. Oracle will also become the lead on many JSRs that lead by Sun. That will worry those who fear Oracle has no time for community or that Oracle will only work those JSRs that are important to its middleware business.

Oracle, though, has a long history of working through industry standards bodies like OASIS and the W3C and on formats such as ODF. In fact, Oracle and Sun thought nothing of teaming up on proposed standards and specifications. Sometimes, this was big-vendor politics. Other times, this was the companies supporting the "better" proposal.

But the company is not regarded as an idealist in the same vein as Sun. Much to its chagrin, its charitable works - such as numerous contributions to the Linux kernel and work on Java - frequently get overlooked by the community, while IBM gets all the credit.

Owning the Java flag won't necessarily advantage Oracle, or its middleware. The excitement from developers in Java is in small or modular open-source frameworks and tools, typified by companies such as SpringSource - home of the Spring Framework.

The JCP has lost its authority among the people involved in this work or using these frameworks. The JCP is seen as a big-vendor talking shop. And JCP member Oracle is just another big vendor.

Furthermore, while Oracle's chief architect Ed Scrivens said this week Java is important to Oracle's middleware, Oracle is not going to get any automatic loyalty from the deal. The best it can do is set out the technology birdseed and hope developers feed periodically at its table.

Any move by Oracle to push a Java Enterprise Edition agenda through the JCP or elsewhere will not only be irrelevant, but will confirm developers suspicions and drive them further away.

As SpringSource chief executive, and Spring founder Rod Johnson blogged: "We agree with Oracle that enterprise Java has a big future. In fact, we are convinced we can help take it to the next level of productivity. But Oracle does not own that future. One of the great strengths of Java is its developer and open source community. This is something that cannot be bought in the same way as a PeopleSoft or WebLogic application server business."

SourceForge's director of community Ross Turk told The Reg Oracle's play on Java seemed to re-enforce its enterprise strategy - to provide a single-vendor solution. He also noted that he's concerned about what Oracle will do to the open-source MySQL database. SourceForge is home to 13,000 projects that use MySQL.

"In the web world people are turning to go for lighter frameworks, But in the Oracle world, applications above the database and middleware - a lot of it is still Java. It seems what they are going for is an Apple-esque single vendor solution, that you don't really get anywhere else these days," Turk said.

There is an opportunity here. Oracle's ownership of the Java "cause" and some of the mechanisms provide an opportunity to win back dissidents through a re-invigorated JCP. For all its talk of community, Sun failed to resolve a lingering licensing dispute with the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) over its implementation of Java Standard Edition.

The only question is how far Oracle - a very business-first operation - is willing to play the community card.

-----------------------------
BY Gavin Clarke in San Francisco
Source：The Register

© Copyright 1998–2009.

BI clouds gather over Oracle-Sun merger

Java is being touted as the crown jewel of Oracle's $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems, but what are the implications for Oracle's business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing strategy? Java is now likely to play a more predominant role in Oracle's BI tools strategy going forwards. But what will happen to Oracle's BI relationship with Hewlett-Packard? And what does the future hold for the BI providers that have built solutions on the MySQL database that Oracle now owns?
##CONTINUE##
Oracle finally gets a chance to put its BI appliance strategy into second gear

By acquiring Sun, Oracle's positioning has shifted from being a pure software company to one that packages in operating systems and hardware.

This isn't exactly a new path for Oracle. The company has already met some success with its data warehousing appliance machine called Exadata, which it launched in October 2008 and co-engineered with HP.

It will now be interesting to see what the future holds for that announcement in light of HP's long-standing partnership with Oracle. When Exadata was announced, it more or less rubber-stamped HP's status as Oracle's preferred server (ProLiant), storage (StorageWorks) and operating system (HP-UX - as well as Linux) partner.

Will Sun's hardware and operating system now match or muscle out HP in Oracle's BI strategy? While there's no doubting the raw muscle of Sun's hardware (it can scale just as much as HP's can), what's unclear is how Oracle can manage the real gorilla in its midst - a real hardware business?

Sun also had its own data warehouse appliance initiative in conjunction with Greenplum and PostgreSQL. The writing is probably on the wall for that product offering. Instead we expect Oracle to use its Sun assets to deliver a much bigger end-to-end BI and data warehouse appliance go-to-market push in the near future, using Sun's hardware to create highly tuned, highly optimised appliances for the running of Oracle databases, application servers and Fusion applications - that is, of course, if Oracle doesn't decide to offload Sun's hardware and storage business, perhaps even to HP, as some have speculated.

BI partners will have to consider MySQL's future under Oracle's wing

Another implication to consider is the role of MySQL in Oracle's portfolio. When Sun bought MySQL it was at best a peripheral player in the BI market, lacking the commitment that's recently been shown by HP. Admittedly MySQL has done nothing to change. However, it did give Sun a competitive and popular database to take a first tentative step into the BI space.

MySQL is part of the BI landscape by virtue of the partnerships it maintains with several big-name BI vendors - notably SAP BusinessObjects, which bundles the open source database as a default repository with its BI toolset. MySQL (along with PostgreSQL) also fits into the open source BI plays of vendors such as Pentaho.

However, Oracle has followed a pragmatic, rather than religious, approach to open source. Under Oracle, MySQL might potentially get better support. However, it also has to compete not only against PostgreSQL but also against Oracle's own open source offerings in Berkeley DB and InnoDB.

Therefore, knowing what to do with MySQL might be Oracle's biggest challenge. It can't simply kill it off - the database is too popular among developers and users. Instead it might see MySQL as a springboard to getting community customers onto its own commercial database and BI offerings.

Oracle might also leverage MySQL as part of an 'express' BI play, which might be bundled with some Sun offerings to provide an open source entry-level database/middleware/SOA stack for smaller customers. Therefore, we might see MySQL start to appear in entry-level BI products from Oracle - or even have Oracle BI support MySQL in its low-end focused BI SE One offering for SMBs.

BI and analytics providers (and Sun partners) such as Infobright, Kickfire, ParAccel, Greenplum Calpont and others that have made a living by throwing their hats into MySQL's lot or run on Sun's hardware will now have to rethink their position. While it's possible that Oracle might continue to support MySQL, as it has done with the last two open source projects that it acquired, we believe that these vendors should look to re-align with alternatives such as Percona or Maria DB, or even other large hardware vendors.

-----------------------------
BY Madan Sheina
Source：ovum

© Copyright Ovum 2009.

How Will Oracle Handle Sun's Open-Source Commitments?

An open-source community expert isn't convinced that Oracle, the prospective new owner of MySQL, Java and a host of other open-source development projects, will put the same kind of commitment into the community that Sun Microsystems does.
##CONTINUE##
With the April 20 acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle, there is an impending change of guard involving the open-source community and its largest enterprise supporter.

Sun has harbored more open-source projects and developers—and had developed a larger outside community—than any other mainstream IT company. Thus, there is a great deal of trepidation about what changes the new boss will make in innovative IT enterprises.

Most people contacted by eWEEK on this topic said they believe that wholesale changes are in the cards, no matter what. A number of MySQL database administrators revealed a mixed bag of opinions on this topic April 23 to eWEEK.

High-visibility open-source projects such as MySQL, Java, OpenSolaris, GlassFish and NetBeans have been written about often in the week following the announcement of the acquisition, which is due to close in the summer of 2009. But not much has been said about a dozen or so smaller open-source projects (see list on the next page) being hatched at Sun Labs—projects that could very well one day grow up to be a Java or MySQL.

So what's going to happen to all this R&D?

"So far, Oracle has been fairly quiet about their intentions regarding Sun's open-source projects," OpenSUSE Community Manager and former Linux Foundation evangelist Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier of Novell wrote eWEEK via e-mail. "Given Oracle's history in open source, I'm skeptical that the company would continue the same level of involvement in promoting open source that Sun has pursued.

"In the next few months, I don't think much is going to change. However, I don't see Oracle continuing OpenSolaris as actively as Sun has, and I'm not sure how this would affect Java. I would like to think that Oracle would continue moving Java forward as an open-source project, but for the most part, Oracle has largely been a participant in FOSS [free and open-source software] projects where it suits the company's interests and not so much a leader in FOSS."

If it fits into the strategy, it may stay

Where it's strategic for Oracle to continue a project as open source, or simply too controversial to discontinue, Oracle will continue to participate, Brockmeier said.

"In the end, though, I think this will be a net loss for the community in terms of contributions. My gut feeling is that involvement in projects like GNOME will decline," Brockmeier said.

How trusted, in general, is Oracle by the community? Its biggest connections have been through Java, OpenSolaris and Red Hat.

"Generally, I think Oracle is viewed fairly neutrally," Brockmeier said. "They contribute to some projects and haven't been actively hostile to open source, but Oracle is pretty quiet most of the time. It's certainly not the first company you think of, or even the 10th, when you hear 'open source.'"

Oracle's "Unbreakable Linux" strategy is not encouraging for the prospect of the company maintaining Sun's existing levels of FOSS contributions, Brockmeier said.

"It seems the company is willing to contribute where it's absolutely necessary, but it's also not interested in doing some of the long-range heavy lifting that many FOSS vendors do to move open-source forward," Brockmeier said. "Maybe an infusion of Sun DNA will encourage Oracle to step up and be a more active player in FOSS. If not, it's a net loss for the community."

There's a lot of watching and waiting going on.

"IBM buying Sun seemed like a mixed bag, but likely a net positive for the community. I think there's some skepticism that Oracle will step up and become a more active FOSS contributor, but one hopes that Sun's FOSS commitments will live on after the deal," Brockmeier said.

Here is a list of open-source projects currently in development at Sun.

Project Celeste

Project Celeste is building a distributed, masterless, peer-to-peer, byzantine and fault-tolerant mutable data store made up of nodes in which no single node is responsible for an operation. Nodes are heterogeneous, they come and go arbitrarily, and they participate with other nodes by communicating through a P2P overlay network. This large-scale, distributed storage system is designed to work not only in dedicated data centers but in open and potentially hostile environments such as the Internet.

Project Darkstar

The video game industry's first enterprise-grade, high-performance, fault-tolerant and highly scalable server technology for online multiplayer games. Written in Java, Project Darkstar has been designed from the ground up to handle almost any kind of online game imaginable.

Electric VLSI Design System

A complete, Java technology-based circuit design package that handles schematics, IC layout and even textual hardware description languages.

Project Fortress

A new programming language designed for HPC (high-performance computing) with high programmability. It is intended to be a modern replacement for FORTRAN. The Fortress design has not been tied to legacy language syntax or semantics; all aspects of HPC language design have been rethought from the ground up.

JVoice Bridge

Software written in Java that handles VOIP (voice over IP) audio communication and mixing for tasks such as conference calls, voice chat, speech detection and audio for 3D virtual environments. This versatile software adapts depending on remote user bandwidth connection, and supports a range of voice qualities from telephone to CD-quality.

Sun Labs Lively Kernel

A new Web programming environment that supports desktop-style applications with rich graphics and direct manipulation capabilities, but without the installation or upgrade hassles. Written entirely in the JavaScript programming language, a language supported by all the major Web browsers, the system can run in commercial Web browsers without installation or any plug-in components and can function as an IDE (integrated development environment), making the whole system self-sufficient and able to improve and extend itself dynamically.

Project Maxine

Project Maxine Research VM, a virtual machine for the Java language, written entirely in Java, gives researchers a more productive way to explore new software technologies. The Maxine Research VM has the potential to greatly improve productivity by reducing implementation time frames and maintenance costs, while giving researchers more flexibility to explore innovative technologies, according to Sun. Already well-integrated with powerful (NetBeans right out of the box, IntelliJ, JBuilder, Eclipse), the Maxine VM will be fully compliant with the JDK (Java Development Kit) within the next few months.

Project Maxwell Assembler System

The PMAS (Project Maxwell Assembler System) is a collection of Java 6 packages that implement several assemblers and disassemblers, automated testing for both and an extensible framework with generators for all of the above. The currently covered ISAs (instruction set architectures) are SPARC, PowerPC, AMD64 and IA32.

Open Media Commons

A community site for projects to develop unencumbered solutions for digital media. Current projects include Project Dream, a Java technology-based open-source, royalty-free and open standard DRM (Digital Rights Management) solution independent of transport format. Other open-source community projects are developing royalty-free codecs technology and streaming media services.

Project Squawk

An open-source research virtual machine for the Java language that examines ways to expand Java into the microembedded space. Written entirely in Java, Squawk aims at a small footprint, and is Java-compliant and CLDC 1.1-compatible.

Project Sun SPOT

An open-source technology based entirely on Java, the Project Sun SPOT open-source release includes the eBones hardware architecture, software libraries, drivers, a networking stack and the Squawk Virtual Machine.

Project Wonderland

A Java technology-based 3D tool kit for creating collaborative virtual worlds. Within those worlds, users can communicate with high-fidelity, immersive audio and share live applications such as Web browsers, OpenOffice documents and games.

Experimental Stuff

Experimental Stuff is operated by Sun Labs for the purpose of sharing experimental technologies and services with the Web community. The technologies and services available from this site are experimental. They are not Sun products, nor are there plans to offer them as products.

-----------------------------
BY Chris Preimesberger
Source：eWEEK

Copyright ©1996-2009 Ziff Davis Enterprise Holdings Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Oracle promises to grow Sun's hardware

Oracle has announced that it will grow Sun's hardware business after the pending acquisition closes and focus the server and storage businesses on the two companies' common enterprise customers.
##CONTINUE##
Many analysts wondered if Oracle would kill off Sun's hardware business which it really didn't need had had little expertise in running. According to a report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Oracle wants to develop software-optimised hardware that integrates all of the enterprise components: hardware, database, middleware and applications.

Oracle said that its Oracle Fusion Middleware is built on top of Sun's Java language and that continued investment will be made in the software. Oracle added its database's uses the Sun Solaris operating system and that after the acquisition, Oracle can "optimise" its database for some of the better bits of Solaris.

It also does not plan to gut Sun's payroll and claims that Sun employees "will be integral" in the execution of its plans to grow the enterprise systems business.

-----------------------------
BY Nick Farrell
Source：Fudzilla

Copyright Fudzilla 2007-2009, All rights reserved.

Sun mates MySQL with more iron

With the preview of the MySQL 5.4 database coming out this week at the MySQL Conference and Expo in Santa Clara, you would have expected Sun Microsystems to be talking up the integration of its systems, storage, operating system, and database even if Oracle hadn't come along to buy the company on Monday.
##CONTINUE##
This week, Sun announced expanded server-MySQL bundles - which were ramped up in November 2008 after being piloted nine months earlier. And while announcing, Sun's MySQL representatives didn't even mention Oracle (well, not on the record, anyway) or the idea of tightly integrated database and application appliances, which Sun's and Oracle's top brass spent most of their time talking about in the short acquisition announcement on Monday morning.

What Sun wanted to focus on was a new reference architecture, which puts Sun Blade 6000 blade servers (using Intel's Nehalem EP or Sun's Niagara Sparc T2 processors), the 10 Gigabit Network Express Module, and "Amber Road" Storage 7000 disk arrays (complete with solid state storage on the blade servers to boost database response time) together with Solaris 10 or Linux, MySQL Enterprise Server, and the Glassfish Web application server as a single.

This reference architecture includes blueprints for creating massively scalable infrastructure for MySQL workloads. It even includes a blueprint for consolidating multiple MySQL workloads from x64 servers onto Sparc T iron blades using a mix of logical domain (LDom) partitions and Solaris containers (which are virtual private server partitions).

To show off what it can do with this combination of hardware, Sun put 20 of the new X6275 blades (each with 16 GB of main memory and sporting two Nehalem EP processors) into a box with all the appropriate software, storage (7410 Amber Road array), and virtualized networking. It was able to support a simulated 1 million end users hammering on a portal application backed up by the Glassfish application server and the MySQL database.

(This integration work was done under a project known as Web Synergy, which you can read more about here. It is interesting to note that Oracle databases will eventually be supported, as will Windows and Linux operating systems in the reference architectures).

That Sun hardware setup costs about $20,000, according to Cari Yuen, senior director of technical marketing at Sun's Systems Group. She says that a comparable configuration from Dell based on 16 of its Nehalem EP blades (the M710), plus two Cisco Systems 3130x switches and a NetApp FAS3140 array would cost around $40,000.

A big difference in the price of Sun's MySQL reference architecture as it expands is the use of the virtual networking in the NEMs, which can drop switching costs by 55 per cent compared to using external switches, as this Dell setup does. (Of course, Dell might have plugged in an Xsigo virtual Ethernet and storage switch, which it started selling back in February).

As part of the MySQL festivities this week, Sun also rolled out updated bundles of servers and storage configured with Solaris and MySQL that are tuned to specific workloads.

The MySQL performance bundle includes the new Nehalem-based X2270 or X4275 rack servers or the older X2250, X4150, or X4250 racks or the X6250 blade. Sun adds a J4200 array, a MySQL Enterprise license with gold-level support, and a slew of Sun support for the iron and Solaris operating system, for $6,442. (That price is for an X2270 rack box).

The MySQL rich media bundle now has the X4275 Nehalem-based server added in to the mix. This bundle puts an X4540 "Thumper" storage server together with J4200, J4400, and J4500 disk arrays plus Solaris and the Zettabyte File System. It is aimed at shops using MySQL for streaming audio and video media storage. With the X4275 server and an Amber Road 7110 storage array, it costs $14,640.

The MySQL backup bundle - which put MySQL Enterprise with all the support goodies on an X4540 Thumper server and adds Zmanda's ZRM for MySQL backup and recovery software - can also use Sun's 7110 arrays instead. Using that 7110 array, it costs $10,995.

The MySQL virtualization bundle - which is aimed at customers who want to partition their machines with Sun's logical domains instead of using Solaris containers - puts the MySQL Enterprise database with the support on a "Niagara" T5220 rack server or a T6320 blade server and the J4200 array. It costs $44,449 using the T5220 server. This bundle is the same as the one that shipped in November.

And finally, the MySQL multi-tier deployment bundle puts clustered MySQL instances on X2250 Xeon servers and J4200 disk arrays. Pricing was not available at press time.

-----------------------------
BY Timothy Prickett Morgan
Source：The Register

© Copyright 1998–2009.

Oracle faces culture shock in Sun's open source world

Larry Ellison is a famously activist exponent of competitive strategy. An avowed student of Sun Tzu's Art of War, the Oracle chief executive has long followed an approach that sets Oracle's interests against those of its main rivals, with Microsoft, IBM and SAP cast as the enemy.
##CONTINUE##
With the acquisition of Sun Microsystems, however, he is about to walk on to new terrain where some of the methods that defined Oracle's traditional approach to strategy no longer apply.

Sun's main software assets - and the jewels for which Mr Ellison said this week that he had agreed to pay $7.4bn for the company - are all closely tied to the open source world: the Java programming language and development tools, which are partly open source, as well as the Solaris operating system and MySQL database.

That makes them unlike the roughly 200 software properties that Mr Ellison has acquired in the past. They are made freely available, and rely partly on the efforts of a wider group of developers to extend and support them. Their future success, in fact, relies on a technology community that stretches well beyond Oracle - and includes companies such as IBM, which also relies on Java as a core technology.

"Obviously Oracle is going to have to be a lot less heavy-handed," says Kenneth Chin, an analyst at Gartner. "They've acquired a lot of open source assets, and they need to keep the communities involved."

So far, Oracle has had little to say about how it will manage this balancing act. That has left the open source world trying to second guess what Mr Ellison will do next.

The focus has shifted in particular to how he will seek to make money from software properties that Sun itself so glaringly failed to "monetise" in the past, and whether his real intention is even to subvert some of the assets he is acquiring to protect Oracle's existing business model.

The future of MySQL - an open source database bought by Sun last year, which has come to be seen as a long-term threat to Oracle's own core database software business - has become the most immediate source of concern.

Marten Mickos, the former CEO of MySQL, admits that Oracle's acquisition of an upstart rival has sent a chill through the open source community, and he likens it to Goliath vanquishing David. However, he also claims that it will still be in Mr Ellison's own interests to maintain the software: "I think MySQL is cannibalising Oracle anyway," so Oracle might as well benefit from that process directly, he says.

Most observers do not expect the hard-headed Mr Ellison to see it this way. Gary Reback, a Silicon Valley antitrust expert, says there is a chance that anti-trust authorities will force him to divest MySQL, but adds: "I think he wins any way you cut it. If he keeps it, he kills it: if he spins it off, who wants it without the top developers anymore?"

There are some potential limits. Mitch Kapor, a leading figure in the open source world, points out that MySQL has a life beyond Oracle's control: the software has already been "forked", meaning alternative open source versions have been created that are outside Oracle's control.

However, stripped of the sponsorship of a big company willing to supply the core group of developers to push the project forward, MySQL could lose momentum as a significant rival to Oracle.

Mr Ellison's intentions for Java have also become the centre of considerable speculation. Created by Sun as a way to counter the growing influence of Microsoft, Java's power comes from its adoption by a wide group of companies, including IBM. If Oracle upsets this ecosystem it would undermine the value of Java - something people close to the company have been at pains to stress.

Yet maintaining Java's openness, while at the same time directing its future development, will be a delicate balancing act, requiring the exercise of what Bill Whyman, an analyst at ISI, calls "soft power" - not Mr Ellison's strength.

"We always wanted Java's evolution to be participatory, but fully open would compromise compatibility," says Bill Joy, the Sun co-founder and former chief scientist. "I believe Oracle shares these values, so am not concerned."

More directly, Oracle has made clear that it plans to make money from Java in a way that Sun failed to do - another source of potential conflict with the rest of the technology world. Besides simply raising the licensing fee, Oracle could try to levy a small fee on every application that runs on Java, according to Gartner - a move that would have particular implications for the mobile world, given that Java is shipped on virtually all mobile phones.

-----------------------------
BY Richard Waters Joseph menn in san Frnacisco
Source：The Financial Times

© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2009.

Oracle's Sun Deal: A Closer Look

Oracle's conference call left plenty of questions about its $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Here are a few, and how they might be resolved
##CONTINUE##
Oracle's Apr. 20 conference call with Wall Street analysts to discuss its $7.4 billion buyout of Sun Microsystems (JAVA) was a straightforward affair. Oracle (ORCL) CEO Larry Ellison and his lieutenants ran though a quick synopsis of how they'd use the hardware and software assets they're buying, and Sun Chairman Scott McNealy read his canned statement in the most perfunctory manner possible. The companies brooked no questions, and analysts were off the phone in 15 minutes.

What remains are plenty of unanswered questions for investors and customers about how Oracle plans to turn Sun from a money-losing entity into a profitable asset. Deep job cuts seem inevitable; less clear is what role, if any, Sun's honchos will play at Oracle. Oracle is saddled with computer servers built on Sun's outdated Sparc chips, though the company hinted at plans to combine its software and Sun's hardware in new ways. It's also uncertain what Oracle's ownership of the widely used Java programming language will mean for the rest of the computer industry, particularly IBM (IBM). Herewith, the five biggest outstanding questions about the deal—and how they might be resolved.

Will Oracle sell Sun's hardware business?
One of the biggest questions surrounding the deal is what Oracle will do with Sun's $9-billion-a-year server and storage business. Many observers expect Oracle to sell it to Fujitsu (FJTSY), IBM, or another computer maker. Sun holds just 4% of the server market, and most of its revenue comes from servers built with Sparc chips, which customers have rejected in favor of often cheaper industry-standard servers based on chips from Intel (INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

Slugging it out in the server business would also mar Oracle's healthy 46% operating margin. And a hardware foray by Oracle could push competing computer makers Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL), and IBM into the arms of Microsoft (MSFT). Oracle would rather those companies sell machines that house its software. "I'd be surprised if Oracle tried to slant their software toward the hardware they just acquired," says Tod Nielsen, chief operating officer at VMware (VMW). Besides, says Gary Scholten, senior vice-president and chief investment officer at Principal Financial Group (PFG), the two companies already cooperate to ensure Oracle's software works with Sun's hardware. "They've done so many things so closely over the years, in some ways [the deal] shouldn't have been as much of a surprise as it seemed," says Scholten, whose firm manages retirement funds and pensions.

In the event Oracle keeps Sun's hardware business, it could try to bolster profit by shedding low-margin parts of Sun's server line and keeping more powerful computers with fatter margins. Pacific Crest Securities analyst Brent Bracelin estimates that Sun generates about $3 billion a year from supporting its Solaris Unix operating system. Most of that is tied to Sparc servers. And there's not a lot of expense associated with Sparc, since Sun outsourced its design and manufacturing.

Oracle executives told Wall Street they plan to engineer the company's software to work well with Sun equipment and offer specialized servers for industries, including banking and telecom. Oracle machines could be attractive to CIOs looking to pare down their list of suppliers.

How will Oracle steward the Java programming language?
On the day he announced the deal, Ellison called Java "the single most important software asset we have ever acquired." It could be a prophetic statement, since Oracle's ownership of the programming language, a computer industry standard, would have wide-reaching effects.

Java runs on 800 million PCs and 2.1 billion cell phones, and Oracle hasn't been shy about raising prices on its products. That means it could pump up Java revenue from the $220 million Sun booked in fiscal 2008 to perhaps $1 billion over time, says Citigroup (C) analyst Brent Thill. Controlling Java could also help ensure that customers of the dozens of companies Oracle has acquired since 2005 have a smooth path to new versions of Oracle's applications written in the language.

Perhaps more important, Oracle would hold more sway over a foundation of much of the world's business software. Owning Java gives Oracle more components of the software "stack" that companies use to create applications, including the programming language, Java middleware, and Oracle's market-leading database. The combination would give Oracle's salespeople more ammunition against Microsoft. And while much of IBM's software is currently based on Java, Oracle could impose restrictions on its rival's use of the language in future products, says Forrester Research (FORR) analyst James Staten.

Will MySQL stay as compelling?
Sun claimed more than 11 million users of its MySQL database, which it bought for $1 billion in 2008. Users include Internet powerhouses Google (GOOG) and Facebook, which favor the software's facility with Web applications. Taking ownership of the open-source software could give Oracle an entrée to Web 2.0 companies.

MySQL also could bolster Oracle's ties to the software developer community, helping it steal programming thunder from Microsoft's SQL Server. "Microsoft has always understood how to deal with developers and has good relationships with them," says one industry executive close to Sun. "Oracle doesn't have the same reach into the most innovative developers in the world. With MySQL, they get there."

Unfortunately for Oracle, most of MySQL's users don't pay for the software, opting for a free, unsupported version of it. Sun booked just $208 million in MySQL sales in fiscal 2008, vs. Oracle's $4.8 billion in expected database bookings for the fiscal year that ends in May. And Oracle's flagship database will pull along an additional $7.6 billion in support revenue. So MySQL could be more important strategically than monetarily to Oracle. "It was a huge source of pain at the low end of the market that they now don't have to worry about," says Citigroup's Thill.

How many Sun workers will lose their jobs?
To get from Sun's $1.8 billion in operating losses for the six months ended Dec. 28 to Oracle's projected $1.5 billion in first-year profits, the cuts will have to be deep. Thill estimates that 40% to 70% of Sun's 33,000 employees will get the ax, the kind of massive cutbacks that Wall Street has wanted and that McNealy and Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz resisted. "Sun is considered to have one of the most bloated cost structures in the tech industry," Piper Jaffray (PJC) analyst Mark Murphy said in an Apr. 21 research note.

Sun's Schwartz and McNealy are unlikely to take management jobs at Oracle, though McNealy could be a candidate for a board seat. He's only 53, close to Ellison's age, and deeply interested in the fate of Sun's technology. Ellison and McNealy had talked many times over the past month and a half and hashed out many details of the deal without the aid of bankers, according to a person familiar with the proceedings.

Schwartz is another story. He's young, a broad thinker, technically and financially savvy, a great communicator, and will likely be able to write his own ticket after selling troubled Sun at a healthy premium for investors. Sure, he's weathered criticism for giving away software and not taking a bigger whack to costs. But Schwartz could be a boon to a company with fewer strategic and operational problems than he inherited at Sun.

Is a culture clash coming?
Oracle's take-no-prisoners sales tactics and bare-knuckled approach to career advancement don't appear to mesh with Sun's positive, can-do engineering culture. Yes, Schwartz and McNealy carried a certain swagger and ego, but Sun has always been about pushing technical boundaries. Oracle these days thrives on aggressive sales and smart financial bets.

Yet Sun's operations will likely benefit from Oracle's approach. "Sun was not a well-managed company and needed more discipline," says an industry executive familiar with its business. "They now will get it. If you don't take the medicine, someone will force it down your throat."

-----------------------------
BY Aaron Ricadela
Source：BusinessWeek

Copyright 2000-2009 by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.

What Will Oracle Do With MySQL?

Microsoft and SQL Server are the real targets, not IBM.
##CONTINUE##
While there is no shortage of questions surrounding what Oracle has in store for Sun Microsystems, perhaps the most intriguing one is what Oracle will do with MySQL. Will it live or will Oracle, which gains MySQL as a result of its $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun, throw it under the bus?

There is plenty of reason to believe Oracle would not want to in any way, shape or form let MySQL cannibalize the licensing revenues Oracle has enjoyed for so many years from its flagship proprietary database platform. There's the school of thought that Oracle doesn't walk the walk when it comes to open source.

"While Oracle has displayed an ability to participate in and benefit from open source software, I think its expectations and aspirations for open source software are limited," wrote 451Group analyst Jay Lyman.

But lest we forget, while Oracle CEO Larry Ellison talks up how acquiring Sun is a key entre for Oracle to further its assault on IBM, his real nemesis is Microsoft. While it is unlikely MySQL was a huge factor (perhaps not even a reason at all) in Oracle's decision to make its surprise bid, the company's decision to put some emphasis on the open source database could be an opportunity to go after Microsoft in a way it could never do with its flagship database.

In fact, that's exactly what MySQL founder Marten Mickos told Forbes yesterday, arguing they serve two different application types. "Microsoft's database business is the fastest growing," Mickos told Forbes. "Oracle can use MySQL to achieve a stronger developer community."

Forrester analyst Noel Yuhanna agrees. "If Oracle plays its cards right, this could be a great move, since it continues to struggle against Microsoft SQL Server especially in the small- to moderate-sized database market, where Microsoft SQL Server enjoys dominance," Yuhanna said in an e-mail. "A combination of MySQL and Oracle DBMS can cover all bases, and put MySQL against Microsoft SQL Server more competitively. Also, we see that as databases become more automated (which is already happening), the need for tighter integration with hardware and bundling will further grow -- therefore having a database appliance (database machine) will become critical."

While the installed base of MySQL pales in comparison to SQL Server, Microsoft is well aware of the momentum around it and the open source database movement, especially for lower-end Web applications. That's why Microsoft has developed its own PHP Driver for SQL Server and last month released its PHP on Windows Training Kit, which includes technical material, best practices and code samples for building PHP applications that run on Windows, IIS 7 and SQL Server 2008.

"Microsoft is going after those folks in a pretty serious way," said Andrew Brust, a director of new technology at twenty six New York, and a Microsoft regional director. "Read what you want into that but it shows how seriously Microsoft takes MySQL."

While most MySQL applications are PHP-based, it also supports .NET applications, Brust noted. "MySQLhas done a pretty good job at working nicely with Windows and ADO.NET," he said. "But I think by and large it is PHP developers."

According to Sun's internal surveys, SQL Server is the number one platform that customers migrate from when moving to MySQL, said Robin Schumacher, MySQL's director of product management. "People using MySQL on Windows makes a very nice alternative to SQL Server," Schumacher said. For enterprise implementations, Linux is still the largest platform for MySQL "but Windows is right behind it," he added.

"They have to see the value of MySQL in the ability for it to continue to gain on the SQL Server marketplace," added Ian Abramson, president of Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) and a director at Toronto-based Thoughtcorp, a data warehousing and BI consultancy, who said the Oracle user community welcomes MySQL joining the fold.

Meanwhile Sun this week coincidently announced the preview of the next release -- My SQL 5.4, which it says will be far more scalable than the current version.

What impact do you think Oracle's acquisition of Sun will have on MySQL, open source databases and SQL Server? Drop me a line at jschwartz@1105media.com.

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BY Jeffrey Schwartz
Source：RedmondDeveloper

Jeffrey Schwartz is editor of ADTmag.com and news editor of Visual Studio Magazine.

Copyright © 1105 Media, Inc.

IBM: At Least We’re Winning Sun Customers

International Business Machines may have lost out on the opportunity to buy Sun Microsystems when Oracle swooped in over the weekend with a $7.38 billion bid. But IBM says it’s still winning over a lot of Sun customers.
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In a statement prepared for release Wednesday, Big Blue said that in the past quarter, more than 100 customers around the world migrated from Sun or Hewlett-Packard to IBM mainframes or high-end Unix servers in the past quarter. It said half the deals were worth more than $1 million, but it declined to provide more financial information.

In the high-end Unix market, IBM said it won over 34 customers from H-P and 28 from Sun. It said it moved 40 customers to its mainframe computers, with most of them shifting from a mixture of Sun and H-P servers. The sharpest growth was in emerging markets where IBM has had surprising success selling mainframe computers.

IBM is trying to downplay the idea that it’s at a competitive disadvantage, now that Sun appears to be in the hands of Oracle. During a conference call with analysts Monday, IBM chief financial officer Mark Loughridge said the company isn’t concerned about Oracle and Sun teaming up because IBM has long competed against the two. He said that since 2000, IBM has expanded its share in the high-end Unix market to 32% according to IDC, up 14 points.

A spokeswoman for H-P said that H-P servers are the most popular choice among organizations running “virtual environments” that make the machines run more efficiently and that 250 customers have migrated from IBM mainframes to H-P’s servers over the last two years. A spokesman for Sun declined to comment.

The competitive wins in the quarter weren’t enough to make IBM’s hardware business grow. Overall, it fell 23% to $3.2 billion. Mainframes fell 19% and System P, the Unix servers, fell 2%.

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BY Bill Bulkeley
Source：THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Copyright ©2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Linux Foundation Says Oracle-Sun Acquisition Will Be Good for Linux

Rather than wondering how open source will be negatively impacted by Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems, the Linux Foundation's Jim Zemlin sets out his thinking on what the acquisition will do for Linux. Not that what happens for Linux will necessarily happen for open source in general, but it's a good place to start.
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Zemlin points out that Oracle was already both a Linux distributor and a Linux user. The company is a platinum member of the Linux Foundation, and its chief architect spoke at the recent Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit. Though Glynn Moody doesn't trust Oracle's assertion that it "is as committed as ever to Linux and other open platforms," Zemlin takes it to the bank. He says:

Oracle is first and foremost an applications and business software vendor, meaning they need to support the OS that the customer wishes to deploy their software on...This acquisition makes a lot of sense for Oracle to fine tune Solaris for their products, but it certainly will not lessen the support or investment Oracle has in Linux.

The acquisition could also benefit ODF and OpenOffice in the enterprise, Zemlin says, because it "strengthens" Oracle's position as an open standards supporter.

I'm sure this isn't the last opinion we'll see on what this buy will do to the industry, but as always, it will be interesting to look back and see whose predictions proved most accurate.

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BY Lora Bentley
Source：IT BUSNIESS EDGE

Copyright © 2009 NarrowCast Group, Inc. All rights reserved.