IBM may buy Sun Microsystems in what may be a $7 billion deal. Apparently, IBM is offering $10/share which at the time the news came out was more than twice Sun’s then stock price.
IBM would be purchasing a fellow hardware and software vendor, and there is a decent amount of discussion and speculation as to what they are primarily after. After all, IBM has invested a fair amount into Java development, tools and solutions. Further speculation is that IBM does not care for the hardware component, but Sun has considerable high-end mainframe-type hardware in its repertoire.
Of further concern is how the industry will react and in particular, Sun customers and users. As a former Solaris sys admin, I know that Solaris shops & admins are fiercely loyal to the OS; and so are many of the Java developers.
I for one, will miss Sun should this come to pass, as I felt that Sun was very much there from the very beginning of the growth of the public Internet and World Wide Web.
