Would An IBM Acquisition Of Sun Make Sense?

IBM’s reported interest (still officially a rumor as of 19 March 2009) in acquiring Sun Microsystems for 6.5 billion US is the biggest news in technology so far this year.

My company is both an IBM and Sun ISV partner and I believe that from a partner and customer standpoint an acquisition would be an excellent move on IBM’s part. The synergy of the 2 firms varied hardware and software solutions along with IBM’s Global Services division would be beneficial for customers, partners and shareholders.

Although on the surface, IBM and Sun have dissimilar cultures and many overlaps in their middleware portfolio’s, the firms are more alike than they are different.

The commentary thus far has been evenly split between those who think a IBM-Sun pairing makes sense to those who wonder what the management of both firms are thinking.

PRO

Larry Dignan @ ZDNet
Sean Michael Kerner @ InternetNews
Kristin Shoemaker @ OStatic
James Sugrue @ DZone JAVALOBBY
Nicholas Carlson @ Silcon Valley Insider

CON

Om Malik @ GigaOM
Dana Gardner @ ZDNet
Tiernan Ray @ Barron’s
John Fontana @ Network World

1. Alexander Alvaro , March 19, 2009:

   Looks like this may be held up due to antitrust concerns in the EU.

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2. Arthur Mueller , March 20, 2009:

   Suns antitrust aggreement with Microsoft will also hold this up

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   Ameed Taylor reply on March 20th, 2009 :

   IBM has done so many acquisitions over the years that I am sure they are taking extra time in due diligence to sort out all potential issues before an announcement were to be made…

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