IBM in talks to buy Sun Microsystems

[Chetan Parekh]

IBM in talks to buy Sun Microsystems

[Ram kovis]

Not sure what IBM will support in future?
lots of overlaps..

- Solaris/Open Solaris Vs AIX
- Netbeans Vs Eclipse/WSAD,RAD
- Glassfish Vs Websphere
- MySQL Vs DB2


IBM and SUN- better stay separated and continue to love each other, dont get married.

[Peter Hsu]

Whatever would happen to Java's future?

[Paul Clapham]

Peter Hsu wrote:Whatever would happen to Java's future?

IBM is one of the largest Java users. They have written their own JVMs which run on their systems. So IBM has a considerable investment in Java even without owning Sun.

But I'm surprised that information like this has been allowed to become public. When the (publicly held) company I work for sent me to do "due diligence" at a company we were considering purchasing, I was warned that I wasn't allowed to discuss my actions with anybody at all but other insiders.

[Sagar Rohankar]

If this takeover happens, Does IBM withdraw GPL from Netbeans, Glassfish, MySQL, etc No more opensource from SUN

[software visualization]

This is M and A mania ala RJR Nabisco and AOL/ Times Warner. This is going to destroy Sun’s legacy and cost IBM big time.

The only reason IBM would buy Sun is to acquire rights to Sun’s patents and then wield them despotically in a way Sun never did. The long story there is this will accelerate the movement to simply ban software patents the way business method patents were all but disposed of by the Supreme Court recently.

What does Sun have that IBM wants? This is not about a smaller company being bought for their technology. It’s about a larger company buying a weakened rival in order to kill off it’s competitor. This is HP and Compaq / Carly Fiorina II.

Sun could continue as it is. It has the cash. It has the vision. The future of computing / cloud based applications, PaaS SaaS is on its side. If anything, they’ve been too far ahead of their times.

If IBM buys Sun you can bet that developers will desert Java en mass since IBM has their “own” VM just they way they have their “own” GUI toolkit for Java. IN the software arena, IBM has the worst case of NIH ever seen. Their developers are convinced they can do everything “better”, with marginal results and more importantly, the creation of discontinuities in technology development and adoption. IBM broke the Java the GUI community into two camps for NO good effect when it introduced SWT. So also with Eclipse, which is a poor imitation of IntelliJ and NB. The cultural differences between IBM and Sun’s developers are where the rubber will meet the road on this M and A. Developers aren’t so many thinking cogs that you can shuffle around from company to company, like other “assets”. They’re people with a POV and an attitude about what they do. That is, to the extent they’re any good at what they do. To the victor, IBM< will not go the spoils.

Here’s a dose of reality to all my friends on Wall Street and in management at both companies. Beneath the level of anything any analyst can see or quantify, there’s little tiny social and psychological micro-events that determine how the knowledge that’s in the heads and practices of Sun’s employees - which is what gives Sun its real value - gets “transferred” (or not) to IBM. So you bought the company. So what. trust me, you didn’t buy the developers. Quite the opposite. IF you think you can walk into any part of Sun’s IP, excepting the patents, and take ownership of it, you and Wall Street have a big surprise coming. It’s not under your control, and it never was and it never will be. The culture clash between the Sun way of doing things, egalitarian, optimistic, inventive, forward looking and social is going to slam head on into IBM’s well documented culture of manipulation, mean spirited employee relations, exploitative relationships with its customers (billable hours), aggressive and opportunistic use of the broken IP system (Phelps), divisive, conceited and rank-abusing management hierarchy, forced rankings among employees where the bottom 10% are automatically fired, etc. etc.

Prediction- the best of Sun’s employee’s flee to Google and Adobe, the rest foot drag and passively resist their new-found hell, IBM destroys zfs, Netbeans and other middleware products, Swing and finally Java itself through a combination ineptitude , alienation of key developers, grandiosity and conceit and when it’s all over a huge amount of really good stuff simply no longer exists, the market is poorer and the forward momentum of software development is set back by 15 years.

[Mandar Khire]

Will this deal show impact on share prices of both company's & will they keep their prices on that level when they dealing after that deal or they move down as many companies in various stock market!
Will sun microsystem reach its first day price 11-Mar-87 high 33.25$ ?(As per yahoo finance)
I think IBM will not change the pattern set by java about download its versions & applications(opensource)!
Will IBM keep java's logo for future also?
Many questions arises in mind!
But in these Bad days especially for stock market & many Big companies, Can we say IBM well move?

[marc weber]

Here's the NYT account: I.B.M. Said to Be in Talks to Buy Sun for $7 Billion.

[Kram Nart]

What does this mean for people who currently hold and/or pursuing Java Certifications? Does it make sense to continue the Sun Certification path?

[Rodrigo W Bonatto]

My mainly concern is what IBM will do with Sun's technology (Java, Solaris, ...)

[Andrew Monkhouse]

"software visualization"

As stated clearly in Dave's post on 11/07/2006 10:49 and in Jeanne's post on 11/30/2006 07:38, there are a few rules that need to be followed, and one is that proper names are required. Please take a look at the JavaRanch Naming Policy and adjust your display name to match it.

In particular, your display name must be a first and a last name separated by a space character, and must not be obviously fictitious.

Consider this your third and final warning. The next time someone notices you posting with an invalid display name your account is likely to be locked.

Andrew

[Vishwas Hegde]

Really???

"IBM buying Sun Microsystems makes no sense, it's a red herring" -- Thats what this below link says!

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gardner/?p=2857

~Vishwas

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Vishwas Hegde wrote: Thats what this below link says!

"It's a purple people eater!" At least, that's what this link says!!!

[Pat Farrell]

It doesn't matter. Sun is dead anyway. They have fired nearly all of their NetBeans folks. And Sun hasn't done anything useful with MySql.

Its probably time to replace Java with a better language anyway. One that is easier to write parallel programs. After all, even I started using it more than 12 years ago. That is a long time in the life of a language.

[Vikas Kapoor]

...

[Bear Bibeault]

You are offended because someone has criticisms of a programming language? Really?

[Pat Farrell]

Vishal Pandya wrote:Although you didn't comment on me directly I am completely offended.

You should not be offended. I didn't say anything about you. I didn't even say that folks who like Java are bozos.

What I believe, based on my 35+ years as a professional developer, is that no language is perfect, and they get revised over time, and then replaced.

Java was invented to solve some real problems, specifically for set-top boxes. It was not aimed building commercial websites, or for writing systems for quad, octo, and 64 processor systems.

I suggest that if you know only Java, you learn some other languages. Python, PHP, perl are all good, and they are just the languages starting with the letter "P"

[Vikas Kapoor]

Pat,
Never mind please. You have faaarrr more experience than me and you might be correct.

[Bear Bibeault]

Pat Farrell wrote:Java was invented to solve some real problems, specifically for set-top boxes. It was not aimed building commercial websites...

And yet, it is just so good for that! I'd be doing something else if I had to use a tinker toy like php.

But yes, no language is perfect. Otherwise, I'd still be writing Bliss!

P.S. Some friendly advice... pulling out the "35-year veteran" card too often diminishes its effectiveness. [Bear puts his 31+ year veteran card back in his wallet.]

[Pat Farrell]

Bear Bibeault wrote:I'd still be writing Bliss!

You wrote in Bliss? When? Where? 10? 16? 32? 36? Or did you write Bliss itself?

Of course, talking about Bliss is the same as talking about 30+ years of experience.

My guess is that one of the reasons that this site changed its name from JavaRanch to CoderRanch is to be ready for when the next cool language hits. So far, none that I've seen recently has the same "wow" factor as C++ or Smalltalk or Java had when they were new.

Its interesting that Objective-C is still so popular, all due to Apple of course. Its not a bad language, but its clearly a hack to smash Smalltalk into C.

[Bear Bibeault]

Pat Farrell wrote:

Bear Bibeault wrote:I'd still be writing Bliss!

You wrote in Bliss? When? Where? 10? 16? 32? 36? Or did you write Bliss itself?

Bliss-32 on Vaxen during my tenure at DEC. Guess I should have said "writing in Bliss"

Of course, talking about Bliss is the same as talking about 30+ years of experience.

Yeah, I'm sure most of the membership post-date Bliss's era of use.

Its interesting that Objective-C is still so popular, all due to Apple of course. Its not a bad language, but its clearly a hack to smash Smalltalk into C.

Agreed, not a bad language if you can get past the syntax weirdisms.

[Kailas Lovlekar]

You guys are right about language evolution and that something will eventually replace or extend even the best language around.

My personal opinion, don’t feel too pessimistic even if IBM deal goes on. Think about the roots of java, dependent tools and its industry reach! Something we didn’t have a decade back when abolishing a language.

I don’t see a burning issue with Java as it stands to call for a replacement. If you are bored with it, try something new for a change, but make no mistake, Java is going to be around for years to come whether we like it or not.

[Pat Farrell]

Kailas Lovlekar wrote:I don’t see a burning issue with Java as it stands to call for a replacement. ....Java is going to be around for years to come whether we like it or not.

Fortran and COBOL are still in use. Languages tend to have long lives, mostly because software does not need maintenance.

My comment was meant to point out a simple fact: folks who bet their careers on Java staying popular will lose. It is far better to be flexible. And learning another language or two is not only good defense, it can make you a better Java programmer.

Long ago, when I was in undergraduate Engineering, an old professor (probably 70) gave a lecture to the entire freshmen Engineering class. There were about 3000 of us in a huge hall. He said that when he was our age, the most exciting, creative, well paying field of Engineering was steam locomotive design. Everyone wanted to get into it. It attracted the best and brightest. Times changed. Be ready for it. That lecture made a huge impression on me.

[Kailas Lovlekar]

My comment was meant to point out a simple fact: folks who bet their careers on Java staying popular will lose.

HaHaHa... Very true. I think most of us who have spent few years in the industry know this already and probably worked with few other languages and technologies. My concern is anyone working hard to master java might be disheartened with such comments, which are based on speculations at this stage.

For our young friends, keep up the hard work and master at least any one language. Carry on java route if you have committed.

About the locomotive example, bright people who mastered steam engines went on to design internal combustion engines. Something we still use on roads and tracks! Some master one thing others jiggle many things. Winning and loosing is individual’s perspective of how they see things.

[Pat Farrell]

Kailas Lovlekar wrote:About the locomotive example, bright people who mastered steam engines went on to design internal combustion engines.

Yes, bright, hard working folks who can move to the next technology will do fine. Those who insisted in staying in steam locomotive design, at least in the US, were done. My grandfather retired, with his steam locomotive in 1947 or so. One railroad that worked mostly in the coal fields kept using steam until about 1956. After that, it was all diesel electric.

I expect that hybrid cars will move to being diesel electric in the next years. So what was old becomes new.

[Chris Baron]

Pat Farrell wrote:

Kailas Lovlekar wrote:I expect that hybrid cars will move to being diesel electric in the next years.

Oh ja, with wheel hub motors, please

[Frank Silbermann]

Pat Farrell wrote:

Kailas Lovlekar wrote:About the locomotive example, bright people who mastered steam engines went on to design internal combustion engines.

Yes, bright, hard working folks who can move to the next technology will do fine. Those who insisted in staying in steam locomotive design, at least in the US, were done. My grandfather retired, with his steam locomotive in 1947 or so. One railroad that worked mostly in the coal fields kept using steam until about 1956. After that, it was all diesel electric.

I expect that hybrid cars will move to being diesel electric in the next years. So what was old becomes new.

The thing to keep in mind is that whatever new language you move to, you need to be able to start having already had five years commercial experience in it.

[Pat Farrell]

Frank Silbermann wrote: The thing to keep in mind is that whatever new language you move to, you need to be able to start having already had five years commercial experience in it.

I had exactly this experience. Long ago, just as Visual C++ was released, I decided to use it instead of the corporate approved language, Smalltalk. We needed to staff up, so the VP told the HR department to run ads. Asking for 3+ years of professional Visual C++ experience. The product had been released for about 3 weeks at the time.

[Chetan Parekh]

Dell to benefit from IBM-Sun deal

[Pat Farrell]

The buzz on Wall Street is that IBM is getting cold feet, the deal is not looking so good as they look seriously at Sun's books and contracts. This is, of course, just another rumor

[Deepak Bala]

IBM buying Sun is a little scary. It will be difficult to predict the future of java. Then again I dont mind learning another language anytime

[Pat Farrell]

Deepak Bala wrote:It will be difficult to predict the future of java.

No, its easy to predict the future of Java. Makes zero difference if IBM buys Sun or not.

Sometime in the future, Java will be replaced by a newer, cooler, faster, and more productive language. I guarantee it.

As written upthread, all languages get crufty and are replaced. The only question is of timing. Electronic computers are about 60 years old, and we've gone through four to six generations of langauges. So roughly every ten years, a language is replaced.

1) machine code
2) mnemonic assembly code
3) macro assembly code
4) higher level languages (COBOL, ALgol, Fortran)
5) structured languages
6) object oriented languages

There are sub branches, functional languages, etc. but adding one or removing a couple of levels doesn't change the big picture story. And the layers have overlap, you could write OO code in a macro assembler language if you had the skill and desire. Its mostly just syntactic sugar.

New langauges are going to better handle parallel processing, make it easier to write Web 5.0 applications, fit better on your supersmart phone/gps, or something else. I'm not good at predicting what is going to happen. But its a lock that when today's 25 year old programmer had grandchilden, they won't believe that he got paid doing something as arcane and tedious as Java.

[Freddy Wong]

Even if IBM buys Sun, Java will still survive. IBM is one of the biggest Java users. My only concern is that some of the Sun products, such as NetBeans and GlassFish will die if IBM buys Sun.

Even if Java dies, there's always a better language that can replace it. Groovy, Ruby, or Python, anyone? In fact, I'm starting to like Groovy more than Java.

[Pat Farrell]

Freddy Wong wrote: My only concern is that some of the Sun products, such as NetBeans and GlassFish will die if IBM buys Sun.

NetBeans is close to death anyway. Sun laid off its NetBeans team. If IBM buys Sun, its unlikely that NB will continue, as IBM is a big supporter of Eclipse.

[Billy Tsai]

what will happen to our Sun Microsystems Java certifications? will they be devalued?
Perhaps it is better to pursue a proper postgraduate degree from a reputable tertiary institution

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Billy Tsai wrote:what will happen to our Sun Microsystems Java certifications? will they be devalued?

I would guess that IBM will rename/rebrand them and they will continue on.

This reminds me a bit of IBM's IDE - Visual Age for Java --> WebSphere Application Developer --> Rational Application Developer.

The first time was a different tool. The second time was just a rebranding because "development is Rational". IBM is good about recognizing strong product lines and keeping them. Sun's certification problem sounds like that type of thing. I'm curious if they plan to keep the name "Sun" for that product line or rename it to something else.

[Jose Campana]

Hello Everyone !
And Hello Jeanne in particular.

What is your opinion about someone pursuing the SCEA 5 certification? Is it still viable or would it be better to get certified on some IBM product like WebSphere Integration Developer, or Message Broker or RAD, etc ?
I just don't know much about what to do right now. Is there an equivalent certification to SCEA provided by IBM ?

Best Regards,

Jose

[Pat Farrell]

Billy Tsai wrote:what will happen to our Sun Microsystems Java certifications? will they be devalued?

I've not seen any place where they were valued. Kinda hard to devalue something without value to begin with.

I'm not really picking on Sun's certs, most of the verndor specific certs are not worth much, unless you are a consultant and the customer wants to see the certs.

Back in the early 90s, Novell's network certs had a value, and Cicso router stuff has some traction.

Perhaps as a ticket to get punched to make your resume stand out from the crowd.

When I was a hiring manager, I wanted real experience over degrees, and degrees over certs. YMMV

[Ulf Dittmer]

Jose Campana wrote:What is your opinion about someone pursuing the SCEA 5 certification? Is it still viable or would it be better to get certified on some IBM product like WebSphere Integration Developer, or Message Broker or RAD, etc ?

The topics of these certifications are so different that it's hard to imagine a situation where one could be substituted for the other. Java will be around for a good long time, regardless of whether Sun will be. So whatever perceived or real value a Sun certification had before these rumors started, it will have just about the same value next year.

[Deepak Bala]

Yikes ! I certainly would not like IBM products to be clubbed with SCEA but this is all speculation anyway. If I had a dime (paisa ?) every time some one predicted java's death I would be a zillionaire.