IBM to buy Sun?

[Cholly]

IBM is in talks to buy Sun Microsystems. More:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090318/bs_nm/us_sunmicro_takeover_ibm;_ylt=As4v1ZMNDJOF4cp0gWb9 Sj2s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTJqZnYzMGNsBGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMDkw MzE4L3VzX3N1bm1pY3JvX3Rha2VvdmVyX2libQRwb3MDMTMEc2 VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDaWJtaW50YWxrc3Rv

[Richard King]

I wonder what, if anything, this would do to Open Office.

[P Smith]

We will know that soon. There are a lot of insiders around ;).

[DarkSkies]

I tried IBM's free office suite, Symphony, and didn't like it. I tried Sun's Open Office, and it's better than Symphony. Interesting question about the future of those products ...

[jfalkingham]

The Symphony components are a line by line rewrite of OpenOffice. I mean literal here. Those components are then packaged to load on top of the rich client platform (RCP) which is Eclipse. This brings along the browser as well as an extensible easy to develop for platform where plugins can live. So, a head to head document to document should provide the same result, its some of the added overhead that can slow things down on the Symphony side. Although the latest version went with Java 6 which has many performance improvements. But take OpenOffice vs Symphony as a whole, and try to extend the product out. You will go further with Symphony. Its easier to customize and incredibly easy to build composite applications that can bring some other applications into Symphony.

Now - as to what IBM would do with OpenOffice, I'm sure nothing. There are a lot of things that SUN brings to the table, that quite frankly they have mismanaged and dropped the ball on. With the proper plan, it can reap huge rewards. Is this a Solaris to AIX draw? Potentially, I'm sure there is play there. But I think overall, with IBM being so vested in Java & open standards, it just makes sense. It also removes the option of MS or HP from owning a strategic component of what IBM does going forward.

[Richard King]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJS1o8OqSf.U&refer=worldwide
IBM’s Takeover Discussions With Sun Said to Collapse International Business Machines Corp.’s acquisition talks with Sun Microsystems Inc. have collapsed, putting the biggest technology deal of the year at risk of failure, a person familiar with the matter said.

Sun informed IBM yesterday that it was breaking off exclusive negotiations, and in response IBM withdrew its offer to buy Sun, according to a person familiar with the situation. The price being discussed was about $9.40 a share. Sun officials said that price was too low, said the person, who declined to be identified because the talks are private.

More....