Oracle announced today that it would buy ailing Sun for $7.4 billion, $.4 billion more than IBM had offered more than two weeks earlier.
The acquisition of Sun by Oracle bodes well for Sun’s server business, but not so well for the Sun/Storagetek storage business. Acquisition of Sun’s SPARC-based and x86-based servers will be a boon to Oracle’s database business, as many of Oracle’s databases run on Sun servers. But is storage in Oracle’s blood?
Nothing is said in the press release about the impact on Sun/Storagetek disk and tape systems. But you can only guess.
Oracle is a software company – even though it has dabbled in hardware with its Exadata deal with HP and with storage vendor Pillar Data – the fact remains that assimilating Sun’s storage business might be more than Larry Ellison wants to bite off. Will we see Oracle sell off the disk storage and tape business? I’d wager a guess and say so. The tape business is a market that sits in opposition to Oracle’s data center strategy. It’s the black sheep of the storage family and something that Sun wasn’t able to integrate into its lines either. The acquisition is of value to anyone – IBM, HP or EMC – competing with Sun as it is an area I’d project that Oracle has little interest in.
Admittedly, the acquisition is one that will help Oracle build out an end-to-end database solution, something the company has partnered for before. Even further, by Oracle acquiring Sun, it gives the company control of Java and Solaris. More Oracle databases run on Solaris than any other platform. Plus, it gives Oracle a chance to take advantage of Sun’s ownership of MySQL, and possibly kill sponsorship of it or take advantage of the large installed MySQL base for future growth opportunities.
Is Oracle’s acquisition good for open source, Sun’s OpenStorage and everything Sun doesn’t charge for? Ellison has never really figured out how to make sense or money out of open source software. Further, what is the future of ZFS and Sun’s lawsuit against NetApp? I’d expect that to continue as ZFS is one of Sun’s crown jewels.
